Market valuation is determined by supply and demand. HeLa cells are substitutable goods in that if Henrietta asked for money for the cells, it would have been e

Market valuation is determined by supply and demand. HeLa cells are substitutable goods in that if Henrietta asked for money for the cells, it would have been easy to find some other donor. Also it's overly simplistic to say pharma companies are making "billions" off her cells. HeLa is a part of the workflow but far far far from the only part. Also value is in the work of scientists understanding the cell biology using her cells as a model, not some inherent value in the particular genome of HeLa.