For our February Member Spotlight, we’re featuring HemaGlobal, a Nebraska company bridging the gap between laboratory precision and patient care.
Tell us about your company.
Founded in late 2024, Nebraska-based HemaGlobal is bridging the gap between laboratory precision and patient care. The company was born at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), where co-founders Dr. Thanh Nguyen and Dr. Michael Wadman worked closely with the Nebraska Medicine National Quarantine Unit to identify a critical bottleneck and safety concern in diagnostics: the manual blood smear.
Creating a high-quality blood smear requires highly specialized skills; when specimens are inadequately prepared, it triggers a domino effect of diagnostic delays and postponed treatment. The need for repeated attempts also places healthcare workers at increased infection risk. HemaGlobal’s flagship innovation, RapidSmear, standardizes the human factors to eliminate the variability of manual slide preparation. The RapidSmear removes the risk of human error and ensures diagnostic-grade results every time. We are committed to closing the gap in global health disparities, providing clinicians everywhere with the tools to deliver timely, life-saving diagnoses—regardless of geography and resources.
Why is Nebraska an important location for your company?
Nebraska is central to our mission because it allows us to keep our innovation “at home.” Furthermore, our founding team is an aggregate of Nebraska’s brightest minds. From Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Wadman unraveling a clinical pain point, to Dr. Andy Schnaubelt assisting with early MVP validation, and finally tapping the expertise of Steve Neubaum and John Neubaum (RD Tool & Engineering) to develop the manufacturing infrastructure to translate an academic technology into a marketable product.
Left to right: Stephen Hug, Thanh Nguyen PhD, Tyler Scherr PhD
Our roots are in Nebraska, but more importantly, our future will remain in Nebraska. HemaGlobal’s rapid growth was made possible by the vital support of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED). Through the Business Innovation Act, Ben Kupsa and the dedicated DED team infused HemaGlobal with the early financial support necessary to accelerate our technology and develop a sustainable manufacturing infrastructure.
We’ve partnered with local manufacturing partners (RD Tool & Engineering, Plasti-Products) to ensure our operations stay 100% Nebraska-based. Being in Omaha also puts us at the doorstep of world-class researchers at UNMC, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. These partnerships are vital; they help us refine the RapidSmear to ensure it works effectively for everyone, from hospital clinicians to veterinary specialists. These relationships transform individual expertise into a unified effort to create lasting impact.
What products/services do you offer?
Our flagship product, RapidSmear, is engineered to produce consistent, high-quality blood smears whether you are operating in a state-of-the-art laboratory or practicing medicine in the field. RapidSmear significantly boosts lab productivity, increasing efficiency by 36% for experienced technicians and a massive 75% for novices and students compared to manual preparation. While RapidSmear remains our flagship product, it is only the beginning. Our research and development team is actively expanding our product pipeline with two upcoming technologies designed to further decentralize diagnostics and bring hospital-grade precision to the point-of-care, whether at the bedside or far afield.
We also work closely with leading academic institutions across the US to integrate RapidSmear units into their educational programs and curricula. Traditional lab training left a significant gap in student confidence, with only 23% finding it effective. In contrast, 93% of students reported that RapidSmear served as an effective teaching tool for blood smear preparation. By providing these tools to universities, we are helping train the next generation of healthcare and veterinary professionals to optimize diagnostic accuracy by producing perfect specimens every time.
Beyond Nebraska, how large is the company’s footprint?
Although HemaGlobal is a young organization, we have achieved remarkable growth within our first year of operation, successfully deploying the RapidSmear across hospitals, laboratories, and veterinary facilities in 21 U.S. states. This domestic expansion is complemented by our active pursuit of collaborative relationships with international organizations, as our technology is uniquely poised to shift the global paradigm for malaria screening and diagnostics. As we scale, we continue to strategically grow our team with mission-driven individuals dedicated to ensuring that our innovative footprint reaches every corner of the healthcare landscape, both at home and abroad.
How many employees do you have in Nebraska? Company-wide?
Having recently concluded a successful inaugural year in 2025, HemaGlobal maintains a lean and highly specialized team focused on metered, strategic growth. We currently operate with five founding members based in Nebraska, bolstered by our recent recruitment of Stephen Hug (strategic advisor), who guides our corporate trajectory. As we move through 2026, our primary objective is to build out a dedicated sales force, which will expand our footprint both in Nebraska and company-wide to meet the increasing demand for our technology.
How does your company support the bioscience industry?
Bioscience serves as the essential bridge between all health science disciplines, yet critical diagnostic modalities remain out of reach for many populations. At HemaGlobal, we believe that unequal access to these critical life-saving tools is a profound disservice to the global community. To support the industry, we focus on decentralizing diagnostics—moving sophisticated laboratory capabilities directly to the bedside and into outpatient settings and beyond. By transferring these technologies into the hands of point-of-care providers and consumers, we are breaking down traditional barriers to healthcare and ensuring that essential diagnostic information is available to improve health outcomes regardless of a patient’s location or resources.
What’s on the horizon for 2026?
In 2026, HemaGlobal is shifting into a high-growth phase centered on market expansion and collaborative innovation. Following the successful launch of the RapidSmear, our primary focus is scaling our commercial reach and increasing market share through a robust, nationwide sales effort. We are simultaneously advancing our product pipeline by deepening our research partnerships within the Omaha and Lincoln communities, ensuring our next generation of diagnostic tools remain grounded in Nebraska’s clinical excellence. We are expanding our university collaborations through our “give-back” initiative, directly investing in the education and development of the next generation of bioscience professionals. To support this momentum, we are prioritizing strategic recruitment to bring on mission-driven talent who will help us redefine the standard of decentralized healthcare.
