May 20 (Reuters) - The estate of Henrietta Lacks can

move forward with a lawsuit against biopharmaceutical company

Ultragenyx over the use of cells taken from Lacks' body

in the 1950s, a Maryland federal court said on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected Ultragenyx's

motion to dismiss the case, ruling that the estate had plausibly

claimed that Ultragenyx wrongly profited from its research using

the "immortal" HeLa cell line.

An attorney for Ultragenyx declined to comment.

The HeLa cells were cut from Lacks' cervix without her

knowledge during a cancer-treatment procedure at a Baltimore

hospital in 1951. The cell line was the first to survive and

reproduce indefinitely in lab conditions and has been used in a

wide range of medical research worldwide.

"We applaud Judge Boardman's historic ruling, which allows

our unjust enrichment claims to proceed and acknowledges the

deep injustices that Henrietta Lacks and her family have

endured," the estate's attorneys Christopher Seeger and

Christopher Ayers of Seeger Weiss said in a statement.

The estate previously sued Thermo Fisher Scientific ( TMO ) for its

alleged misuse of the HeLa line in a case that settled last

year.

The Lacks estate sued Novato, California-based Ultragenyx,

which develops treatments for rare genetic diseases, days after

the Thermo Fisher settlement. The estate accused the company of

using HeLa cells "like a dairy farm treats cows" to mass-produce

materials for gene therapy.

"HeLa cells' impact on medical research is unassailable,"

Ultragenyx told the court in its motion to dismiss the case.

"But Plaintiff has sued the wrong defendant, using an invalid

legal theory, in pursuit of 'huge profits' that do not exist."

Boardman said in denying Ultragenyx's motion that the

estate's case was strong enough to continue.

"Ultragenyx asks this Court to find that its acquisition and

use of HeLa cells is too remote from the seizure of cells from

Henrietta Lacks for Lacks to state a claim for unjust

enrichment," Boardman said. "That is not the law."

The case is Lacks v. Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc ( RARE ), U.S.

District Court for the District of Maryland, No. 1:23-cv-02171.

For Lacks: Ben Crump of Ben Crump Law; Christopher Seeger,

Christopher Ayers and Jeffrey Grand of Seeger Weiss; and Kim

Parker of the Law Offices of Kim Parker

For Ultragenyx: Nadira Clarke and Andrew George of Baker

Botts; and Tonya Cronin of Baker Donelson

Read more:

Henrietta Lacks' family sues Ultragenyx over use of HeLa

cell line

Thermo Fisher settles Henrietta Lacks lawsuit over 'HeLa'

cell line

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington)