Bug Zapper: How A New Machine Snuffs Killer Bacteria With Ultraviolet Blasts - Forbes
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Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff
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11/02/2011 @ 6:39PM | 616 views
Bug Zapper: How A New
Machine Snuffs Killer Bacteria
With Ultraviolet Blasts
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Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass. treats 40,000 emergency
room patients a year. In 2010, 33 people admitted for surgery or other
ailments caught a superbug called Clostridium difficile, or C. diff. Six died and
three others had their colons removed. Cooley has company: Last month
Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Ontario, Canada got slapped with a $50
million class action after a C. diff outbreak killed 50. Antibiotic-resistant
bacteria infect 100,000 patients a year, and they are notoriously hard to fight.
One study by Dr. Roy Chemaly, head of infection control at Houston’s MD
Anderson Cancer Center, found that even after swabbing with bleach, alcohol
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Bug Zapper: How A New Machine Snuffs Killer Bacteria With Ultraviolet Blasts - Forbes
and other biocides, 8% of high-touch
surfaces (tray tables, door handles,
remote controls) in hospitals still test
positive for superbugs.
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Brian Cruver,
founder of
Xenex, in
Austin, Tex.,
aims to
stomp the
killers in
their tracks.
His weapon:
a rolling, 3foot-tall
machine
(think R2-D2
from Star
Brian Cruver with his Xenex machine
Wars) called
the Xenex
that bathes hospital rooms with intense, millisecond
pulses of ultraviolet light from a high-wattage strobe
light. The UV penetrates bacteria and either
scrambles their DNA, preventing reproduction, or
kills them outright. Xenex also has motion sensors
that shut it off in case someone opens a door; 30
minutes of that UV exposure would cause mild
sunburn.
Cooley Dickinson started using the Xenex in early
2011. So far only eight patients have developed C.
Christopher Helman
diff, and none has died. (No other cleaning
Forbes Staff
procedures were changed.) It’s a similar story at
Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, in Greensboro,
N.C., which in the first half of 2011 eliminated superbug infections in its
intensive care unit altogether, down from 14 cases in the same period a year
ago. At roughly $1,500 a day in treatment and room expenses, Moses Cone
figures it has saved $2.4 million thus far. Nationwide dealing with hospitalacquired infections runs $30 billion a year. “We feel like we’re working
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From Houston, Tex
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Bug Zapper: How A New Machine Snuffs Killer Bacteria With Ultraviolet Blasts - Forbes
against the clock to grow as fast as we can,” says Cruver, 39. “Every day there
are people getting sick unnecessarily.”
Cruver got his first dose of the health care industry as a consultant at William
M. Mercer. An M.B.A. at the University of Texas eventually landed him at
Enron, where he traded bankruptcy risk and had a front-row seat for the
company’s collapse. His book, Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth
from an Enron Insider, later became a TV movie. Cruver then cofounded
Giveline.com, an online retailer that gave a portion of every sale to charity. It
struggled, so he went scouting for more startup ideas.
In early 2009 Cruver met Dr. Mark Stibich and Dr. Julie Stachowiak, who
were studying Russian methods of fighting tuberculosis using UV light. UV
rays have a long disease-fighting history; today they sanitize water, air, food,
even surgical wounds. But killing bacteria in an entire room is tricky—there
are just too many nooks and crannies, and common UV lamps don’t emit a
broad enough spectrum of UV wavelengths to whack the worst bugs.
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Stibich showed that a high-energy form of UV called UV-C could kill C. diff, in
either its active state or as a dormant spore protected by a tough seedlike
shell. “If you kill C. diff, you kill everything else,” he says. A high-wattage UVC light might sanitize an entire room quickly. Many bulbs create light by
sending an electric charge through argon or neon gas; fluores- cent and UV
lights often use mercury vapor. But too much mercury can be toxic, and
mercury-based lamps can take an hour to disinfect a room. Xenex uses
harmless xenon gas to blast a broad spectrum of UV wave- lengths in all of ten
minutes. Says Cruver: “It’s the difference between leaning against a wall and
hitting it with a jackhammer.”
Cruver brought the idea to Morris Miller, founder of Rackspace Hosting, a
large data-storage company, whom he had met doing a talk show for his
Enron book tour. Miller, the son of a physician, and other investors agreed to
pitch in $5 million—enough to order some devices (first made by Russian
medical supplier Melitta, now made in the U.S.) and to set up a 5,000-squarefoot warehouse in Austin. Because the Xenex isn’t used on patients, it didn’t
require FDA approval. The first units rolled out in mid-2010.
This year Xenex, now with 30 employees, has sold or leased machines to two
dozen hospitals at roughly $80,000 a pop, including unlimited replacement
bulbs. (The U.S. has more than 5,000 hospitals; Cruver figures they each need
at least two Xenex machines.) Next steps include beefing up his direct-sales
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/11/02/bug-zapper-how-a-new-machine-snuffs-killer... 11/3/2011
Bug Zapper: How A New Machine Snuffs Killer Bacteria With Ultraviolet Blasts - Forbes
Page 4 of 6
force and wooing distribution partners. A big win: Sodexo, the facilitiesmanagement giant, headquartered in Paris, says it plans to use the Xenex as
part of its standard hospital-cleaning service.
Proving that the Xenex can prevent new patients from getting infected would
supercharge Cruver’s top line, but it will cost him to get there. In 2012 MD
Anderson will launch a new one-year, $500,000 study on patients treated in
Xenex-disinfected rooms.
Meanwhile, competition lurks. Lumalier, in Memphis, Tenn., has made a
name selling slower, mercury-based UV emitters. Johnson & Johnson and
others have systems that spray aerosolized hydrogen peroxide, a messy
process that takes a couple of hours. “The biggest challenge is overcoming the
way they’ve disinfected for 30 years,” says Cruver. “What they do now is the
seat belt. Xenex is the air bag.”
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