Our history

Steno Diabetes Center has existed for more than 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 A/S.

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 founded in 1932 by the one of the founders as "The Steno Memorial Hospital". The purpose of the hospital was to support diabetes treatment and to carry out research into diabetes. The founders also gave the hospital its name. The reason for naming it after Niels Steensen was twofold: partly to honour the renowned scientist and partly because they 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.

Read more about Niels Steensen (Steno) 

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