VIOLET DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY, based in Celebration, is on the road to bringing its ultraviolet germ-killing devices to market.

Before becoming obsessed with the germ-killing properties of ultraviolet light, Mark Nathan was a businessman on the go, hopping on and off airplanes.

“I was constantly sick and I thought there has to be a better way to control germs in the environment,” said Nathan.

A tinkerer and entrepreneur by nature, he wanted to make something – and in this case, it was disinfecting devices that used ultraviolet light as the main weapon to fight serious germs such as MRSA and E. coli.

Specifically, Nathan wanted the devices to be affordable, small, and in different shapes, so they could be used anywhere – from a hospital room to the guest bathroom.

It was an ambitious goal, but by this fall, after nearly a decade of research, and five years after founding Celebration-based Violet Defense Technology, Nathan launched his first consumer product line, which he says involves a breakthrough discovery.

Ultraviolet light’s ability to kill germs has been known for nearly a century and endorsed by federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the technology has become more sophisticated over time. Today, there are a range of germkilling ultraviolet products on the market, including small handheld devices that cost less than $100 and more powerful machines that sanitize hospital rooms in a short amount of time and cost more than $100,000.

But what all these devices have in common is the tube-shaped UV bulb.

Violet Defense says it’s disrupting the industry by its patented technology, which creates a bulb