Henrietta Lacks’ Family Sues Ultragenyx for Cell Use Profits

The family of a woman whose “immortal cell line” has led to medical innovations such as the polio vaccine and gene mapping has sued Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. in federal court.

The biopharmaceutical company made massive profits using materials derived from tissue taken from Henrietta Lacks in the 1950s without her knowledge or consent, her grandson Ron Lacks says in a complaint filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

The family is seeking a share of the money Ultragenyx made from gene therapies that are used to treat orphan diseases—those affecting a very small number of ...