[citation needed] Surfactant deficiency was identified as the cause of infant respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) as long ago as 1959.

In the 1970s Bengt Robertson and Göran Enhörning showed that natural surfactant, containing both phospholipids and proteins, could ameliorate the signs of RDS in immature rabbits.

In the 1980s Bengt Robertson and Tore Curstedt developed a porcine surfactant, Curosurf (named after their surnames), which was effective in immature animals and was used in a pilot clinical trial beginning in 1983.

This showed that Curosurf reduced pulmonary air leaks and neonatal mortality in preterm infants with severe RDS.

Subsequent trials conducted by the Collaborative European Multicenter Study Group, which included among others Guilio Bevilacqua, Janna Koppe, Ola Saugstad, Nils Svenningsen and Jean-Pierre Relier, showed that early treatment was more effective than later administration and that infants treated at birth had similar neurodevelopmental status to untreated controls at a corrected age of 2 years.