Meet the Norwegian startup developing a new generation of emergency tourniquets

According to the chief surgeon of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, colonel of the medical service Kostyantyn Humenyuk, the main cause of death on the battlefield is bleeding. If a large artery is damaged, the injured person often dies before receiving help. Severe bleeding from arms or legs can kill within minutes, and a tourniquet is often the fastest way to control it.

Tourniquets are widely regarded as lifesaving in both battlefield and civilian emergency medicine, but users struggle to use them correctly. Norwegian startup Aristeia is developing a next-generation emergency tourniquet designed to make it faster, easier, and less painful to stop life-threatening bleeding for both professional first responders and non-medical users. On my trip to Kyiv earlier this year, I sat down with Aristeia founders Gard Fostad Moe (CEO) and Hsin Chen (COO) to learn all about it.

Image: Aristeia founders Hsin Chen (COO) and Gard Fostad Moe (CEO). From a napkin sketch to a medical device Moe describes himself as a “hillbilly biophysicist from a small village with an interest in engineering, physics, and mathematics.” The idea for the tourniquet began at university, with the initial concept sketched on a napkin.

Gard actually worked on cancer drug delivery systems for his Master’s degree but admits, “I've always enjoyed building things and solving practical engineering problems. While I'm not a mechanical engineer myself, I enjoy approaching technical challenges from a physics perspective and then working with specialists who can help turn those concepts into reality. This project gave me the opportunity to work on something tangible that could potentially save lives.”

Chen joined Aristeia in 2018. My background is in health economics, and I've been involved in helping bring the concept from development towards commercialisation. Rethinking the tourniquet Following a decade of R&D, the concept for the tourniquet is straightforward.

The device is placed around the limb and pressure is