Jacobæus Prize for Biomedicine

The Foundation's oldest award

The Jacobæus Prize was established in 1939 (first awarded in 1942) in memory of the Swedish professor Hans Christian Jacobæus and is the Novo Nordisk Foundation's oldest prize.

In 2025, the Prize was renewed as the Jacobæus Prize for Biomedicine, awarded to internationally recognised researchers affiliated with Danish non-profit research institutions who have made major contributions to basic biomedical science.

The Prize is intended to acknowledge scientific excellence and to further strengthen biomedical research in Denmark.

The Foundation welcomes nominations by individual researchers and by research institutions including academic and industrial institutions, and research funding agencies.

The Prize is accompanied by DKK 1.5 million, of which DKK 1.25 million is a research grant and the rest a personal award. An additional DKK 200,000 is awarded to the recipient's host institution to hold an award symposium within the recipient's research field(s), where the recipient is invited to give a presentation on his or her research.

Hans Christian Jacobæus (1879-1937) was a pioneer in clinical research. Among other things, he developed a method for examining the lungs using thoracoscopy (a telescopic examination), which has had a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases, especially tuberculosis. Jacobæus was a member of the board of the Novo Nordisk Foundation from 1926 until his death.