Nils Löfgren

Who was Nils Löfgren?

Nils Löfgren was a Swedish chemist who developed the anaesthetic Lidocaine in 1943. At this time, he had recently finished his licentiate degree, and was teaching organic chemistry at the University of Stockholm. He and his co-worker Bengt Lundqvist sold the rights to Xylocaine to the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra AB.

In 1948, Löfgren completed his doctorate, and the title of his dissertation was Studies on local anesthetics: Xylocaine: a new synthetic drug. He later became professor of organic chemistry at the University of Stockholm.