Our history

Steno Diabetes Center has existed for almost 75 years. It is widely recognised both nationally and internationally.

Steno Diabetes Center was established in 1991 as a result of the merging of Niels Steensens hospital and Hvidøre Hospital; two years prior to this, the owners of the teo hospitals, the Nordisk Insulin Laboratorium and Novo, merged and became Novo Nordisk A7S.

The merger of the two hospitals resulted in Niels Steensens Hospital being redeveloped and extended with the addition of research laboratories and clinics. The restructuring led to a reduction in the number of beds; the idea being that future treatment would be predominantly outpatient. Today, many of the staff formerly from the two hospitals work at Steno Diabetes Center. Hvidøre Hospital is now purely a course centre for the Novo Group.

This is why we are called Steno
Niels Steensens hospital was built in 1932 by the owner of Nordisk Insulin Laboratorium, H.C. Hagedorn, who also gave the hospital its name. His reason for naming it after Niels Steensen was twofold: partly to honour the renowned scientist and partly because Hagedorn shared Niels Steensens’ outlook on life. Even in his own time, Niels Steensens was referred to as Steno, and, therefore, it seemed appropriate to use the name for the result of the merger of the two hospitals.

A centre in constant development
In 2001, Steno Diabetes Center set up the Diabetes Unit at Rigshospitalet in collaboration with H:S, the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation. The Diabetes Unit treats people with diabetes from the H:S catchment area, who formerly attended the outpatient clinic at Steno Diabetes Center. In line with an agreement between H:S and Steno, these patients are still treated by staff from Steno.