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Covid sanitiser business hits back after 30-day protection claim controversy

Zoono chief exec says he is certain his sanitiser product can help Britons return to work
ByRachel Millard19 September 2020 • 12:00pm

Former RAF regiment chief of staff James Milnes made his way to the London Underground’s Central Line depot in August 2015 with an important task.He was to oversee tests of his employer Zoono’s sanitising product for Transport for London to prepare for risks such as a “predicted long-overdue pandemic”, according to a report dated 2015.It would prove an auspicious day.

Five years later, UK offices and train operators including TfL, have turned to Zoono’s Z-71 surface sanitiser as they try to coax people back to the pandemic workplace.

The New Zealand-based business has enjoyed staggering growth during the pandemic, with sales leaping 2,000pc to £20m over the latest year, and its shares, listed in Australia, up 30-fold from 4p to £1.16.

But its claims of providing up to 30-day protection have now come up against regulators in the UK, raising questions over its growth as well as the oversight of health products in a global market during a pandemic.

“I do believe our product can make a difference,” says Paul Hyslop, the chief executive, who owns 40pc of the company, arguing it is a “disservice to the UK public” that Zoono is restricted in its UK marketing.

Many Britons have not returned to the office due in part to fears of catching coronavirus on public transport. Concern with returning to office, Zoono found itself in high demand in the pandemic. The former airline pilot and real estate developer set up Zoono in 2007 after buying a business that cleaned mould from swimming pools in Arizona. He confesses to a “limited understanding of chemistry” at the start, but has since spent “every cent I have” developing the product – selling his car and even the family home.

Defined by its special chemical formula that “bonds” to surfaces, Zoono listed in 2016 with its products sold in more than 20 countries, but noting that the time taken to get regulatory approvals had slowed growth. By 2019 it had opened a UK office, in Bury St Edmunds, with hopes of using it as a springboard to the wider European market.

It was soon at the centre of a global scramble for supplies after publishing test results in February showing Z-71 protected against feline coronavirus, a surrogate for Covid-19 in lab testing. Battling to meet soaring demand, it started manufacturing some of its own materials and chartered planes of container bottles from China. Growth came with challenges. In the UK, Zoono was told by the medicines regulator to stop making claims about its hand sanitiser’s effectiveness against Covid, as it was not authorised to do so.

But its UK website highlighted its work against pathogens generally, including that it “helps to protect for up to 30 days on surfaces”. Such claims have been repeated by train companies using Zoono and seeking to reassure anxious passengers getting back on board. Northern Rail reassured passengers that Zoono “protects every surface for up to 30 days”.Yet, as revealed by The Telegraph last month, Zoono has stopped making claims about 30-day pathogen protection in the UK, after Trading Standards intervened following complaints.

Zoono has passed rigorous official anti-bacteria tests in the UK over 24 hours, but claims about 30-day protection are more difficult to make as there isn’t an official UK test. Hyslop insists the product is effective over that time frame, and he wants to develop a protocol with Trading Standards so he can make the claim. He produced tests from labs in a number of countries to back up the claim, adding Zoono had recently hired an independent laboratory to check its performance in UK rail. “They tested 23 trains and over 70 hot touch points, for Covid, E.coli and staphylococcus. All surfaces were found to still be sterile after 30 days.”

When Zoono asked the UK lab to run the tough 24-hour test out to 30 days, bacterial reductions were below the threshold at which they would pass the official 24-hour test. Hyslop stressed this 30-day test in the UK was not official and was just “out of interest”.

“A 99pc-plus reduction at 30 days [achieved against E-coli] is still remarkable,” he added. ‘We have probably saved lives’ Hyslop conceded it was a “fair argument” that he could have made arrangements with Trading Standards before making the claims in the UK, but added in August: “I know that it works, and we have probably saved a few lives. We should have been more diligent.

”He also needs to convince regulators in the US about how he can market his product. First Student, the US’s largest bus group, recently withdrew its own publicity telling parents that Zoono kills coronavirus, as it is not approved in the US to do so.

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Separately in the US, Zoono has become embroiled in a spat with Bravatek Solutions which described Zoono as a partner and had its shares suspended by the SEC in April over alleged claims talking up Zoono’s products. Hyslop says Bravatek only ever had a relationship with a sub-distributor, not Zoono itself. Bravatek said it stood by its claims. Hyslop is no stranger to controversy. He was caught up in a high-profile alleged insider trading scandal involving shares in New Zealand construction group Fletcher Challenge in 2000. He was not prosecuted.

He triggered questions among peers when, during an interview with an investment website in February, he said: “Our product is very safe, kids can drink it.” Questioned now over the claim, he says: “We do not recommend people or children drink our product but if accidentally swallowed – and it has been – it has caused no damage.

”He appears braced for the challenges ahead. “Like most entrepreneurs it has been a life of ups and downs,” he says. “But resilience and persistence always pays through.”