Nils Löfgren (18 August 1913 – 21 January 1967) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

chemist who developed the anaesthetic

Lidocaine Lidocaine, also known as lignocaine and sold under the brand name Xylocaine among others, is a local anesthetic of the amino amide type. It is also used to treat ventricular tachycardia. When used for local anaesthesia or in nerve blocks, lidoca ...

(under the name Xylocaine) 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 Astra AB was a former international pharmaceutical company headquartered in Södertälje, Sweden. Astra was formed in 1913 and merged with the British Zeneca, Zeneca Group in 1999 to form AstraZeneca. Product development was focused on therapeutics ...

.Early history of the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Stockholm
In 1948, Löfgren completed his doctorate, and the title of his dissertation was ''Studies on local anesthetics: Xylocaine: a new synthetic drug''.Libris database
/ref> He later became professor of organic chemistry at the University of Stockholm.

References

Swedish chemists 20th-century Swedish inventors 1913 births 1967 deaths 20th-century chemists {{Sweden-med-bio-stub