Jan Lilja, laboratory engineer, and Sven-Erik Nilsson, computer scientist, dreamed of a better method for measuring hemoglobin. Read more.
White blood cell count provides valuable information in the diagnosis or exclusion of an infection. Based on HemoCue’s microcuvette technology, the WBC system allows medical professionals to accurately determine total white blood cell counts right at the point of care.
The WHO called for reducing anemia by 50% in women of reproductive age, as part of its 2025 World Health Assembly Global Nutrition Targets. This made the assessment of anemia a global priority, and at HemoCue, we knew that we could make a difference. We launched Embrace Health — Unite to Screen and Treat Anemia, a campaign to reduce anemia by increasing awareness and providing practical tools to aid in the screening, diagnosis and to support the treatment of the condition.
Armed with a dream and a vacuum cleaner, Joakim Pettersson in HemoCue’s R&D department found a way to make analyzers work without a reagent. This reduced the time it took to get hemoglobin results from minutes to seconds.
Measuring hemoglobin in the 1970s was time consuming, labor intensive and prone to errors. Jan and Sven-Erik believed that there was a better way. They believed that microcuvette technology could be used to create a portable device to measure hemoglobin. They were told it couldn’t be done. But they didn’t give up and eventually invented technology that revolutionized the hemoglobin measuring process.