HeLa cell

They were known as the HeLa cell line, and they had been used to develop the polio vaccine, treatments for H.I.V. and other landmark medical advances.

But lawyers for her family accuse Ultragenyx of continuing to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known - an “unjust enrichment” claim that largely mirrors the recently settled lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which was filed in 2021.

But lawyers for her family accuse Ultragenyx of continuing to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known — an “unjust enrichment” claim that largely mirrors the recently settled lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which was filed in 2021.

While acknowledging an ethical responsibility, it said the medical system “has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line.”

Doctors harvested Lacks’ cells in 1951, long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known.