UltraViolet Devices has found itself in the middle of an unintended growth spurt, propelled by the coronavirus pandemic. The family-owned Valencia disinfecting company produces robots that emit ultraviolet radiation that kills germs, as well as HVAC systems with the same technology, and air filtration to combat odors and airborne contaminants. In addition to 333 percent growth over the past three years, according to Chief Executive Peter Veloz, the company has seen a spike in demand specifically for its disinfecting robot, UVDI-360, of nearly six times compared to five months ago. “All of our product lines have just been surging with demand. It’s just been almost overwhelming,” explained Veloz. “The pandemic is adding to that arc. We’ve had to really work on global supply chain constraints, mainly doing everything we can to keep our employees safe because we are an essential business.” The initial boost can be traced back to a collaboration between the small Valencia manufacturer and Clorox Co. in 2014, which introduced an earlier version of the UV robot to hospitals. The Oakland consumer goods company handled sales and marketing — UltraViolet focused on product development and manufacturing. The company started mobile disinfection 10 years ago and has been active internationally for six years, with its UV robots in nearly 500 hospitals in 25 countries; 400 of those are in the United States. Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital is one organization that uses UVDI’s robots, as one of 14 hospitals in Southern California using 40 robots total. “They’ve got 10 of our devices and they run them on a daily basis throughout,” said Veloz. “We’re very proud of that relationship because that’s really the goal … that there’s widespread adoption throughout the hospital, all the critical care areas, and that’s a great example.” EnBio Corp. is a Burbank company that installs and maintains hospital equipment. Chief Executive Arthur Zenian said that recently some equipment is in short supply, so UltraViolet isn’t alone. “At the end of the day, you want to sell this to an infection control department, their personnel,” added Zenian, referring to disinfecting equipment. “They’re the ones always making sure everything is sanitized properly – there’s enough of this, enough of that, we’re not cross-contaminating patients, we’re making sure when they leave the hospital they’re not contracting anything different than what they were in here for.” Zenian continued: “If they (patients) do get sick on your dime and you have to take care of them, you can’t bill insurance for it. It’s a contracted disease, and they can prove it came from the hospital.” How UV works When a cleaning crew turns over a patient room, or goes to clean shared rooms at night, studies show that only 50 percent of all possible areas actually get cleaned, according to Veloz. “It’s just such an impossible task to get that chemical on every surface perfectly,” Veloz explained. “We call ourselves the ‘second step.’ The unit can do its cycle and provide its UV light to all of those critical areas, the high-touch surfaces of the room, and now we’re going to go from that 50 percent level to greater than 99 percent level in just 10 minutes.” Ultraviolet light alters the DNA of pathogens that come in contact with it, meaning they can’t replicate and become infectious, Veloz told the Business Journal. “You’ll hear us say, ‘it’s killed,’ when more technically they’re inactivated, they can’t replicate, and that’s ultimately how infectious disease forms,” said Veloz. “If you take coronavirus, if you take MRSA or staph infections, or you take C. difficile, which is a big infectious agent in hospitals, all of these when they’re exposed to the UV light are inactivated.” People, of course, cannot be in the room when the UV light is on — the robot gives the operator 30 seconds to leave the room before turning on. Infrared and motion sensors ensure the robot turns off if someone happens to come in while the machine is running, Veloz said. Longevity marketing UltraViolet Devices has been perfecting its disinfection methods since 1949, Veloz said, with grandfather Lou Veloz formerly an engineer for Westinghouse when the company first developed and patented ultraviolet lamps. “My grandfather started a UV business focused on water disinfection in Los Angeles, and then my dad Tom started UVDI, Inc. proper in 1992 from that original company,” added Veloz. In a category with many companies making dubious claims, trust in a multi-generational company, clinical data to back up current product efficacy and studies backed by the scientific community is what sets UVDI-360 apart when there are so many other similar products coming on to the market because of the pandemic, Veloz said. “Evidence is really important in our industry,” he noted. “We have a study from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that showed that we actually helped remove not just the pathogens, but reduced their hospital acquired infection rate by 25 percent when it came to their C. difficile infection rate over a year. “That study was peer reviewed and published in a leading infection prevention journal, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, that we were able to have a body of evidence that can include published studies as well as third-party lab studies to actually drive the evidence behind the effectiveness of our unit,” he added. Ed Luterbach, chief commercial officer for cleanliness verification company Hygiena in Camarillo, told the Business Journal that a hospital would likely have its own verification system, too. “If you don’t have that third-party accreditation, validation, then what happens is the hospital itself, I would assume, does validation, all the swabbing and testing to make sure UV does get rid of pathogens in the patient rooms, or wherever they’re putting it,” said Luterbach. “The CDC has designated 17 spots within a patient room and it could be the remote for the bed, the faucet, the light switch — these are all the high-touch points.” “As a biomed, we look for the tag and we get all of the necessary documentation needed to make sure this is safe for a hospital,” added Zenian. “We typically don’t double check if it’s a manufacturer that we’ve been working with in the past. But if it’s a new manufacturer or someone we haven’t seen before, we make sure we can get all the certs and approvals.”
