Laerdal Medical

Laerdal Medical is a Norwegian medical-technology and healthcare-education company headquartered in Stavanger. It develops physical manikins, patient simulators, airway-management trainers, defibrillation and resuscitation training equipment, software, and educational programs used to teach healthcare professionals, emergency responders, students, military personnel, and members of the public. Its products are designed to support learning and assessment across the chain of survival, from recognition of cardiac arrest and basic life support to advanced resuscitation, trauma care, anesthesia, obstetrics, pediatrics, and critical care. The company traces its origins to 1940, when Åsmund S. Lærdal established a publishing and manufacturing business in Stavanger. The early business produced books, educational materials, and toys, including soft-plastic products. This manufacturing experience later became important when Laerdal entered medical training. The company’s decisive transformation came through its involvement in cardiopulmonary resuscitation education during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Working with resuscitation researchers and educators, Laerdal introduced Resusci Anne, a reusable CPR training manikin modeled on an unidentified woman whose facial features had become associated with the so-called “L'Inconnue de la Seine” death mask. Resusci Anne helped make standardized, repeatable CPR instruction possible at large scale. Laerdal subsequently broadened its portfolio from CPR models to increasingly sophisticated patient simulators. The SimMan family became a prominent platform for scenario-based training in which learners can assess a simulated patient, perform interventions, and receive physiological responses through software-controlled systems. Other product families address newborn and pediatric care, airway management, trauma, ultrasound, nursing skills, and emergency medical services. The company also supplies classroom equipment, course materials, software, audiovisual systems, and service support rather than treating simulation hardware as a stand-alone product category. Its business is closely connected with international resuscitation and emergency-care organizations. Laerdal has collaborated with groups including the American Heart Association, the European Resuscitation Council, the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, and the World Health Organization on training, educational content, and programs intended to improve survival from cardiac arrest and other time-critical conditions. The Laerdal Foundation, a separate philanthropic foundation associated with the company’s history, has supported research and initiatives related to resuscitation and acute medicine. Laerdal operates internationally through regional organizations, distributors, training partners, and direct relationships with hospitals, universities, ambulance services, governments, defense organizations, and professional associations. Its positioning combines medical education, simulation technology, and public-health impact. The company remains privately held and is associated with the broader Laerdal Group. Current public materials do not establish a separate publicly traded listing for Laerdal Medical.

Laerdal Medical developed from a Norwegian family business founded in Stavanger in 1940 by Åsmund S. Lærdal. The original company was active in publishing and manufacturing, with products that included books, educational materials, and toys made possible by advances in soft-plastic production. This background gave the business capabilities in molding, product design, and mass manufacture that later supported its move into medical education. During the postwar period, advances in cardiopulmonary resuscitation created demand for practical methods of teaching people how to perform chest compressions and rescue breathing. Researchers and instructors needed a durable training model that could be used repeatedly without exposing learners to a live patient. Laerdal responded by developing Resusci Anne in collaboration with medical experts, including resuscitation pioneer Peter Safar and other contributors to the emerging CPR movement. Introduced around 1960, the manikin became one of the best-known symbols of CPR education and helped standardize instruction internationally. The adoption of Resusci Anne marked a strategic shift toward medical training. Laerdal expanded into manikins for basic and advanced life support, airway management, neonatal care, pediatric emergencies, and trauma. As computer control, sensors, and digital media improved, the company added high-fidelity patient simulators capable of representing changing vital signs and responding to learner interventions. SimMan became a central product platform in this development, allowing instructors to create realistic clinical scenarios for hospitals, universities, ambulance services, and military or government users. Laerdal’s activities also developed beyond hardware. The company has supplied instructor materials, scenario software, debriefing and audiovisual tools, skills-assessment systems, and course-related services. This broader model reflects the company’s view that effective simulation requires a combination of a physical patient representation, appropriate curriculum, trained instructors, objective assessment, and structured debriefing. Resuscitation has remained a core area of the company’s identity. Laerdal has worked with professional organizations and public-health partners on CPR and emergency-care programs, including initiatives intended to increase bystander response, improve the quality of training, and strengthen systems of care. The company’s philanthropic history is also associated with support for resuscitation research and global health projects through the Laerdal Foundation. In the twenty-first century, Laerdal broadened its simulation portfolio across adult, pediatric, and neonatal care, as well as obstetrics, anesthesia, nursing, ultrasound, trauma, and prehospital medicine. Its products are sold or deployed in many countries through a combination of regional operations, distributors, institutional contracts, and training partnerships. Laerdal Medical remains part of the privately held Laerdal Group and continues to present itself as a healthcare-education and medical-simulation company rather than as a conventional pharmaceutical or hospital-services business.

1. 2020Greater emphasis on scalable resuscitation training

   The company continued to provide CPR, emergency-response, and clinical-simulation equipment as healthcare education adapted to large-scale and blended training needs.
2. 1990Development of the SimMan platform

   The SimMan product family became a major platform for computer-controlled, scenario-based patient simulation.
3. 1980Growth of advanced simulation

   Laerdal developed increasingly sophisticated patient simulators for advanced clinical and emergency-care education.
4. 1960Resusci Anne introduced

   Laerdal introduced Resusci Anne, a reusable CPR-training manikin that helped make standardized resuscitation education scalable.
5. 1960Expansion into medical training

   Following the success of its CPR manikin, the company expanded into broader resuscitation, airway, and emergency-care training products.
6. 1940Founding of the Lærdal business

   Åsmund S. Lærdal established the Stavanger-based business that later developed into the Laerdal Group and Laerdal Medical.

A global medical-simulation and resuscitation-training specialist focused on improving clinical competence, emergency response, and survival outcomes through realistic simulation and scalable education.

• Resusci AnneCPR training manikin1960

  Resusci Anne is Laerdal’s best-known CPR-training manikin. It is designed to teach and assess chest compressions, rescue breathing, airway opening, and related basic-life-support skills. Different configurations support instructor-led courses, feedback on compression quality, and integration with training defibrillators or digital learning systems. Its long history and widespread adoption made the product a reference point for standardized CPR instruction.

• SimManPatient simulation system

  SimMan is a family of advanced patient simulators used for scenario-based education in emergency medicine, nursing, anesthesia, critical care, and prehospital settings. Depending on configuration, the system can support airway procedures, physical assessment, physiological changes, medication scenarios, defibrillation, pacing, and structured instructor control. SimMan systems are commonly paired with scenario software, recording, and debriefing tools.

• SimBabyPediatric patient simulator

  SimBaby is designed for training teams in the assessment and management of ill or injured infants. It supports pediatric airway, breathing, circulation, and emergency-care scenarios, with instructor-controlled responses that allow learners to practice recognition, intervention, teamwork, and escalation. The platform is used in healthcare education and simulation centers where pediatric cases are difficult to reproduce safely with live patients.

• SimNewBNeonatal patient simulator

  SimNewB is a neonatal simulator intended for newborn-resuscitation and neonatal-care training. It supports practice in delivery-room stabilization, ventilation, chest compressions, assessment, and team coordination. The product is aimed at helping clinicians rehearse low-frequency, high-risk events in a controlled environment and is used alongside neonatal resuscitation curricula and institutional simulation programs.

• Little AnneBasic CPR training manikin

  Little Anne is a compact CPR-training manikin intended for group instruction, schools, workplaces, community programs, and introductory life-support courses. Its design emphasizes portability and the ability to train multiple participants efficiently. It represents Laerdal’s approach of offering simpler, scalable training devices alongside advanced clinical simulators.

• 1990Move toward high-fidelity clinical simulationStrategy

  Healthcare education increasingly sought realistic team training for complex and high-risk clinical situations.

  What changed. Laerdal expanded from physical skills manikins into computer-controlled patient simulators and associated software.

  Aftermath. Advanced simulation became a core part of the company’s portfolio across hospitals, universities, emergency services, and other institutional users.
• 1960Launch of Resusci AnneProduct launch

  The development of modern CPR created a need for a reusable and realistic training device that could support standardized instruction without using live subjects.

  What changed. Laerdal introduced Resusci Anne and built a dedicated business around resuscitation and emergency-care training.

  Aftermath. The product became internationally associated with CPR education and established Laerdal as a medical-training company.

1. Laerdal Medical official website