In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the settlement between Novartis and the family of Henrietta Lacks, the startup that wants to treat Alzheimer’s with microrobots, medical groups push back on RFK’s vaccine changes and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis settled a lawsuit with the estate of Henrietta Lacks over allegations that it unjustly profited off her cancer cells. Lacks, a Black woman whose doctors took cells from a cancerous tumor in her cervix without her knowledge, died in 1951 at the age of 31. The story of Lacks, whose cells subsequently contributed to scientific breakthroughs while her family struggled with poverty, was detailed in the best-selling 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Details of the settlement agreement, finalized in federal court in Maryland, were not made public. It follows an earlier agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific three years ago. Taken together, the two settlements represent something of a reckoning by the medical establishment with the field’s historic racism and the harm that can be done in the name of scientific progress.

Lacks’ doctors had harvested cancerous cells while she was receiving treatment, without her knowledge or permission, a practice that was legal at the time. Those cells, called HeLa cells, were subsequently used in medical research that led to the development of vaccines for polio and Covid-19 and treatments for cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

This Startup Wants to Use Mini Robots To Treat Alzheimer’s

For the past few months, neurosurgeons at hospitals in Florida, Connecticut and New York have been preparing for a wildly experimental operation designed to treat Alzheimer's disease, the dementia that leads to devastating memory loss. The surgery, which they've been practicing on cadavers, aims to clear the drainage pathways to the brain. This could help patients' own lymphatic systems........

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