UltraViolet Devices Inc. is at war with norovirus, rotavirus, acinetobacter baumannii, influenza A, and other microbes found in health care settings. The Valencia-based company primarily manufactures and designs devices that use ultraviolet light to clean air conditioning and ventilation systems and disinfect water. But the company says over the next decade its ultraviolet devices will serve a growing legion of health care clients, especially as hospitals work to lower infection rates and clinical studies show the effectiveness of ultraviolet light in the cleaning process. UltraViolet Devices Inc. (UVDI) last year introduced the V-360 sanitizer, an upright tube that bathes a room completely in ultraviolet light to clean exposed surfaces where stubborn bacteria can live for weeks, or in some cases, months. “UV light has this amazing ability to deactivate single cell organisms on contact,” said CEO and Chairman Peter Veloz. He has co-owned the company with his brother David Veloz, a screenwriter, since their father, Tom Veloz, died in 2006. Tom Veloz started UVDI in 1992 as an off-shoot of Aquafine, a company that was founded by his father, Louis Veloz, in 1949. Today, UVDI occupies 45,000 square feet in a business park in Valencia, where it employs 53 workers. In 2011, the company generated $14.5 million in sales, up from $14 million the previous year. Peter Veloz handles the day-to-day operations, but said the brothers communicate on strategic business decisions, such as focusing on health care as an emerging product market under its UVDI Med label. “We believe hospitals need a two-prong approach of disinfecting the air stream and surfaces,” Veloz said. “We’ll capture that under the brand.” Patient safety is a critical issue for hospitals and other medical facilities. One microbe alone, C. diff, or Clostridium difficile, is linked to 14,000 deaths a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty nine states plus the District of Columbia require some kind of public reporting of hospital acquired infections. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 also includes provisions on reporting and reducing these infections. “If no one takes a leadership role and develops better technology the problem won’t go away,” Veloz said. Among area hospitals using UVDI products are the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in West Los Angeles and Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita. For the past four months, Henry Mayo has been conducting a pilot program with the V-360 and hospital executives are pleased with the added layer of disinfection that the device provides, said Jonathan Miller, assistant vice president of ancillary and support services. The V-360 has been used in rooms occupied by patients who were placed in isolation with an infection. The hospital also may use the device in operating rooms, the intensive care unit and rooms occupied by patients with joint replacements. It takes about an hour to clean the room and bathroom with the UV device, Miller said. “That adds time to bed turnover, but it is worth the investment to make sure the rooms are clean,” Miller said. Healthy approach Before the Veloz family began cleaning air ducts and hospital beds, it disinfected water. Aquafine founder Louis Veloz pioneered the use of ultraviolet light to disinfect outdoor water sources. He later expanded the techniques for use in the food and semiconductor manufacturing industries. In 1962, his son Tom Veloz joined the company and managed a contract to manufacture a residential water disinfection system to sell in Asia. The contract eventually helped Tom to start UltraViolet Devices in 1992. Aquafine, meanwhile, continued to thrive. Roberta Veloz — Tom’s wife and Peter and David’s mother — was the company’s CEO until 2004, when it was sold to Trojan Technologies. Aquafine remains in Valencia and makes disinfection products used in the food and beverage, life sciences, marine, and recreation industries. Tom Veloz applied his expertise of making ultraviolet devices for water applications to create devices for use in heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems. DMG Corp. in Whittier, Calif., has sold UVDI’s products to end users for nearly a decade. Sales of UVDI products have picked up as institutions today widely use ultraviolet devices for cleaning HVAC systems, said Steve Weston, vice president of sales for DMG. “People are much more into the quality of the air, keeping people healthy and productive at work,” Weston said. “All those things are nebulous and easy to dismiss, but they are real.” Miller of Henry Mayo said he appreciates the high-tech approach of preventing bacteria growth in the hospital’s air conditioning system. “If you use chemicals to control the growth, the chemicals could get into the HVAC, which you do not want in a patient area,” he said. Product Innovation UVDI’s products have improved over time, as the Veloz family business has changed hands from one generation to another. For example, the water treatment units sold in Asia have gone through three versions. The V-360 sanitizer is an updated version of the V-Pad used in educational institutions and industrial settings. “There are a lot of technological innovations and an understanding of UV light behind our business,” Veloz said, adding these innovations are developed and tested in a small lab “where the MacGyver in us comes out.” The design of the V-360 involved its own scientific study and research. Its upright structure maximizes the amount of UV light that is emitted. The size is based on the average height and width of hospital rooms, though it still is compact enough to fit in a small bathroom, or in other tight spaces. Four infrared sensors are built into the base to shut down the device when detecting human movement. To speed adoption, UVDI keeps its prices low so that health care facilities can purchase multiple sanitizers. “They need four per hospital,” Veloz said. “They cannot afford that at the prices of most of the competition.” Meanwhile, UVDI officials say the company is staying on the cutting edge of new and improved UV applications. Increasingly, mercury-based lamps are replaced by light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. LEDs run cooler, last longer and use less energy — qualities appreciated by the environmentally conscious, Veloz said. He said the company has yet to manufacture devices using LED lamps, but it plans to do so in the future.
Clean Machines
