Baltimore, Maryland - The family of Henrietta Lacks has reportedly reached a settlement with Novartis, a pharmaceutical company that allegedly profited off products it developed using her cells taken without her consent.

According to the Associated Press, the Henrietta Lacks Estate reached a settlement with Novartis earlier this month, though details of the agreement have not been made public.

Lacks, an African-American woman, was receiving treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when doctors removed cells from her tumor without her consent.

Now called HeLa cells, they were the first-ever human cells to grow endlessly in a lab. They have since been used in numerous medical breakthroughs, including in the development of polio and Covid-19 vaccines.

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Lacks' family has never been compensated for the cells' use, which have led to Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.

The Lacks family previously reached a settlement in 2023 with biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Other lawsuits are pending.

Lacks was a Virginia tobacco farmer and mother of five who died at age 31. She was buried in an unmarked grave.

On its website, Johns Hopkins states that it has never profited from Lacks' cells, saying it "offered HeLa cells freely and widely for scientific research."

"Though the collection and use of Henrietta Lacks' cells in research was an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s, the laws protecting research subjects have evolved," the statement reads.

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"We at Johns Hopkins have been supportive of legal changes since 1951 that protect research subjects, and we are compliant with these requirements, including those related to informed consent."

The Lacks family and Novartis are "pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks' Estate outside of court," they said in a joint statement after the new settlement agreement.

According to the 2010 bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, other members of the Lacks family had chronic illnesses and no health insurance, even as the HeLa cells were being used to achieve major scientific developments.