Alpharetta Tech Talk

Sam Perkins, Pūrgenix™ (PHI Technologies, LLC)

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“Alpharetta Tech Talk,” Episode 14:  Sam Perkins, Pūrgenix™ (PHI Technologies, LLC)

Pūrgenix™ equips hospitals with patented technology which eliminates airborne pathogens in hospitals, preventing root infection sources which cause numerous illnesses and even deaths. Sam Perkins joined this edition of “Alpharetta Tech Talk” to discuss how this technology not only protects patients but hospital employees as well, reducing absenteeism and turnover. The host of “Alpharetta Tech Talk” is John Ray and this series is broadcast from the North Fulton Business RadioX® studio. Special thanks to Renasant Bank for their support of this episode of “Alpharetta Tech Talk.”

Sam Perkins, Pūrgenix™ (PHI Technologies, LLC)

Sam Perkins is the CEO of Pūrgenix™ (PHI Technologies, LLC).

Parents entrust their child to a children’s hospital, only to have their child infected during their stay. Failure to address the root infection sources in hospitals causes these infections and creates headlines like: “6 deaths, more illnesses blamed on mold at Seattle Children’s hospital, CEO admits.” Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), known in the healthcare industry as nosocomial infections, are increasingly being recognized as preventable. Infectious pathogens, which may have no adverse effect on a healthy individual, can be life threatening to a patient with a compromised immune system.

Hospitals currently employ multiple technologies, products and procedures for cleaning, disinfecting, and sterilizing different aspects of the hospital environment. The PurgenixMatrix™ augments these best-practice techniques by delivering the first hospital-wide, systemic approach to air disinfection. We reduce the risk of airborne HAIs and provide healthier air for patients, staff, and visitors alike through addressing pure air at the source, the HVAC system.

Pūrgenix® attacks the root of mold and disease pathogens in hospitals creating a pūrHospital®. The first pūrHospital®, Harrison Memorial Hospital, has a three-year record of zero hospital acquired sepsis and pneumonia, combined with 9 of 12 quarters with zero surgical site infections-results not seen until becoming a pūrHospital®. Pūrgenix® creates pūrHospital® pathogen elimination by installing the PurgenixMatrix™, their patented germ eliminating energy field, in every air handling. PurgenixMatrix™ generates an intense UVGI energy field that kills or deactivates infectious pathogens both in the passing air and on air handling unit (AHU) interior surfaces.

For more information, you can connect with Sam on LinkedIn, or email him directly.

Show Transcript

John Ray: [00:00:14] And hello again, everyone. Welcome to yet another edition of Alpharetta Tech Talk. I’m John Ray and we are in Alpharetta. We’re not in the Business RadioX Studio inside Renasant Bank as we usually are. We’re in a new normal, but we’re in Alpharetta, in a nice safe location and excited about being here today. We’ll get to our guest in a moment, but I want to remind you that we love Renasant Bank even though we can’t be there right now. And Renasant Bank has all the mobile applications that you need.

John Ray: [00:00:51] Whether it’s your friends, your family or your life, Renasant understands how you bank and offer those mobile services you need. Renasant also knows that sometimes you need to speak to real people the real answers and they have real offices you can find, 190 convenient locations throughout the south ready to serve you. Call ahead and check in with them. For more information, go to renasantbank.com, Renasant Bank understanding you. Member FDIC. And now, I want to welcome Sam Perkins. Sam is the CEO of Purgenix. And Sam is as timely as anything can be right now. Sam, welcome.

Sam Perkins: [00:01:35] Thank you very much, John. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you here from a safe zone in Nashville, Tennessee.

John Ray: [00:01:42] Yeah. All right. You’re on the phone from Nashville. And company headquartered here in Alpharetta. But you’re working out of Nashville because that’s really kind of a little bit of ground zero in terms of what you do, right?

Sam Perkins: [00:01:54] It is. It’s really the epicenter of health care in the United States. And this is where we need to be. And our presence here is actually quite timely.

John Ray: [00:02:05] So, let’s get into it, talk a little bit about Purgenix. How are you helping folks?

Sam Perkins: [00:02:13] You know, I think, John, the best way to summarize it is really our mission. And if you believe that they’re catching something in a hospital, getting an infection in a hospital is probably one of the greatest fears, I think especially right now in these times, then what you do is you really understand our mission and that is that we create an air-handling system performance that we are able to remove these germ agents inside the air system, and then block them from being able to be spread around the hospital again. And that is our underlying mission. And that impact when you do it across the entire hospital creates a PurHospital.

John Ray: [00:03:00] So, the way you help hospitals is, I guess, you’re installing really aftermarket technology into the air handling systems, correct?

Sam Perkins: [00:03:15] That’s right. So, what we have, John, is we have a patented platform of an array of ultraviolet lamps. That array with our patent is able to smooth or create a curtain of energy inside the air system. And because where we do it, we placed that at the pivot point of all air and the air-handling unit from what’s called the cooling coil. And we then design the energy field to eliminate. It’s the dog. I’m at home with a dog.

John Ray: [00:03:49] Absolutely. And that’s okay. So-

Sam Perkins: [00:03:52] We eliminate those pathogens in the course of that by being able to remove it. And we can design it at different levels of energy depending upon what’s needed.

John Ray: [00:04:07] So, Purgenix has been around a while. You’ve had this technology for a while. And before the coronavirus came along, we’ll get to that in a second. Of course, that’s extraordinarily timely. But the airborne pathogens are a big problem in hospitals, generally.

Sam Perkins: [00:04:30] Yeah, that’s right. If you were to spend some time, I think the best example of the impact that we can have is at a hospital in Cynthiana, Kentucky, which is really the first PurHospital. And I’d recommend your listeners go and check out their Facebook page, their Instagram feed and other such social media to see the impact of PurHospital. What we did there was three years ago, we installed our system inside of every air-handling unit.

Sam Perkins: [00:05:01] And by doing so, I think the CEO best summarizes it by the reason for what she said, “We’ve had quarters before where we’ve had zero infections”, but they believed that this was the next layer through which they could then take all of the great practices and get a more consistent zero infection ratio. And if you’re interested, I’ll be happy to share with you what happened over the last three years.

John Ray: [00:05:26] You know, that would be great. And folks, we’ll put these links to this in the show notes as well, but yeah, we’d love for you to share that, Sam.

Sam Perkins: [00:05:33] So, what’s curious is that they’re a hospital that has gone in the medical world with zero hospital-acquired pneumonias when I last met with them in April in person. That’s an astounding record, but there’s more. They also had gone a thousand days with zero central-line infections. That is an amazing statistic as well, but they’re not finished. They went seven out of 10 quarters with zero surgical-site infections. So, before this moment in time where we’re confronting the COVID-19, they were already having these outstanding infection rates over the past period of time.

John Ray: [00:06:20] So, several things to pull out of that, but again, before we get to COVID-19, even before we get to that, let’s talk about, there’s a huge branding impact on that for the hospital, but address that if you would. And also, what’s the financial impact because it’s got to be tremendous for them.

Sam Perkins: [00:06:40] Yeah. Oh, it is. So, let’s talk about, first, the emotional part of this. And if you take a look at their social media page particularly the last two weeks and a new story that was done on March 9th, what they’re talking about is that they can now talk about being a safer environment. All of their media is saying that over the last two weeks in particular. They’re safer because they’re a PurHospital. And I think a great way of being able to say it is that after the hands are washed, the surfaces are clean. The CDC protocols are followed.

Sam Perkins: [00:07:17] PurHospital assures that as you go through that hospital, that you’re actually in the safest environment. And that emotional piece of what we talked about with PurHospital, they’re using in Harrison Memorial to reassure the reality that they are safer hospitals. That’s the emotional part of it. The financial piece is pretty significant too. Sheila Currans, The CEO at Harrison Memorial has shared that they’d already seen after a-year-and-a-half a reduction in their infection control costs.

Sam Perkins: [00:07:53] And in the impact on absenteeism, while unmeasured, the employees are very happy working in that environment because they too are safer. Remember, we do have people on the front lines that are taking care of us in the hospital and they’re being exposed to this too. And we’re helping them be safer in that hospital, and that’s an important piece for employees. I mean, the question is where would you rather work? A PurHospital or the other hospital. Another emotional piece.

Sam Perkins: [00:08:21] But the financial aspect of it too is that because of that, the employees are healthier, you have an impact on employee absenteeism. But there’s another hard cost piece that has not as much to do with the infection prevention, but because of where we do it, in the air-handling units, there are actually some very significant energy savings and operating savings from cleaning the systems and replacing filters that go away. And they, in fact, paid for this system alone. And they recognize that there at Harrison Memorial.

John Ray: [00:08:56] And there are plenty of studies out there relatedly that employees that feel good about where they work, that translates into bottom-line performance.

Sam Perkins: [00:09:09] Oh, yeah. There’s no doubt. We did a social media promotion, if you will, a year ago, where there is a restaurant in town, Biancke’s. It’s one of the oldest restaurants in all of Kentucky. Biancke’s is a wonderful old place. I love visiting there when I’m in town, visiting them. And we went and bought two $100 gift cards to Biancke’s. And in that, we had one for the community and one for the employees. And all we ask them to do is take a picture next to one of the banners that proclaims that they’re a PurHospital.

Sam Perkins: [00:09:49] One says, you know, “Shouldn’t your babies air be pure?”, the picture of the baby and the mom. “Take your picture next to that banner, tag Harrison Memorial Hospital. Put the hashtag, PurHospital”, which is P-U-R-H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L, “and put it on social media and you have an entry to win that gift card.” Well, we had somewhere around 156 employees do that with comments on social media such as, “I am so happy that my hospital where I work cares as much about me as we do about our patients.”

Sam Perkins: [00:10:21] That was a powerful message. And that was affirmation of exactly what you’re talking about. That’s awesome. Folks, if you just joined us, we’re speaking with Sam Perkins. And Sam is the Chief Executive Officer of Purgenix. So, Sam, you have installations. It’s amazing, the list of—if I can just read a few, the list of installations that you have beyond Harrison. I mean, that includes Emory, WellStar, UHS Aiken, Baptist Health. That’s a pretty impressive client list.

Sam Perkins: [00:11:00] Yeah. Where we were if we’ve been demonstrating the power of this, you know, until COVID-19, I had a rather difficult challenge explaining to everybody the invisible enemy they were fighting, the germs, right?

John Ray: [00:11:13] Right.

Sam Perkins: [00:11:14] I think COVID-19 has raised awareness around this and before, we’re talking about solving problems of C. diff, which redistributes in a hospital, we solved that for somebody. MRSA, we can go on with the list of nasty germs there in hospitals that cause these problems that we help eliminate from the air system. And we were doing individual installations. It’s really the change that we had three years ago over the PurHospital saying, “Hey, this is not about a single part. You need an entire protective envelope across the entire hospital.” And then, you can talk about it because, you know, the funny thing about air is it doesn’t know how to stay place, stay in one place, it moves around.

John Ray: [00:11:57] Right.

Sam Perkins: [00:11:57] So, covering the whole hospital makes a difference, and that’s sort of what happened. So, Harrison Memorial is our first PurHospital. But if I may, the hospital in Georgia that people may be interested in, our technology is throughout the Paulding Hospital. Now, they did not choose to take the PurHospital branding. And so, they’re not a PurHospital, but they could be. And what I do like is that when that hospital was built and introduced, I love how Mark Haney, who’s now retired from WellStar introduced to all of Georgia, in essence, on WSBT, Channel 2, the hospital from the mechanical room. I mean, when have you ever seen that before, John?

John Ray: [00:12:43] Yeah, really.

Sam Perkins: [00:12:45] You want to go there in the atrium, right? You want to go to the pretty place.

John Ray: [00:12:48] Exactly. With all the potted plants, right?

Sam Perkins: [00:12:51] Exactly. So, instead, he decided that the pretty place was actually down in the mechanical room showing our system on TV. This happened, what, six years ago when they opened that hospital.

John Ray: [00:13:03] Wow.

Sam Perkins: [00:13:05] And I love the statement, he said like, “This hospital is designed as an infection-prevention tool from the outset. We still have to do the basics, but now, we have the building working for us.” That’s a powerful statement.

John Ray: [00:13:19] Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Sam Perkins: [00:13:20] I mean, in most instances, John, what’s happening is not only, you know, you’re washing your hands, cleaning the surfaces, and what’s happening is you’ve got to remember that you’re doing this environment with the rebroadcast of this drug building, and that’s what we’re preventing.

John Ray: [00:13:39] And so, just to clarify, you’ve got all these installations in the various parts of that particular institution or a location. So, you mentioned WellStar Paulding. You know, there’s just certain aspects of that property that you cover. But the Harrison installation was noteworthy because you covered the entire facility.

Sam Perkins: [00:14:10] That’s right.

John Ray: [00:14:10] Yeah. And so, that’s really where you’re going with the company in terms of branding an entire facility a PurHospital.

Sam Perkins: [00:14:18] That’s right. So, a part of what we’re doing quite frankly is that we’re designing and building installing. We’re maintaining the system to make sure—because part of PurHospital’s re-certifying, it’s going to perform to the standards to which we are going that we said that it will perform. And so, PurHospital is about the reassurance that system is operating as designed.

John Ray: [00:14:39] Right. Right. And-

Sam Perkins: [00:14:41] That’s part of it. So, part of it is, you know, WellStar Paulding has a medical office building attached to it. We did not put our systems into the medical office building. So, that’s part of it, too, is they could become a PurHospital pretty quickly by covering that and such. So, that’s an example. You know, over at UHS Aiken, with Universal Health Services, we did all their surgical suite. And while they’re much safer, you know, again, it’s not the whole hospital that’s covered.

John Ray: [00:15:09] So, why don’t we talk about return on investment? Because that’s really what it’s all about for, certainly, the health care industry where they’re squeezed in terms of their returns and profits just like everyone else. They’re looking for the best return they can get. Why don’t you talk a little bit about that because that’s a compelling part of your story, it seems to me.

Sam Perkins: [00:15:34] No, there’s so many multiple paybacks. Let me break them down into three areas. And I think most importantly, let’s start with the leader around PurHospital, the impact on infections. We talked about that and the important thing is that let’s start to look at the infection rate in United States, about 900,000 hospital beds, 1.7 million infections in hospitals a year and a hundred thousand people die from them. So, that’s a one in 17 probability of death if you get an infection in a hospital, right?  So, every hospital bed then, if you average, represents just slightly less than two infections.

Sam Perkins: [00:16:18] So, every 17 infections that we block, there’s a life that’s been saved. The cost of fighting an infection for a hospital is about $16,000 per infection. If we block those infections, that’s an immediate return to them. Certainly, it’s the impact on families too. How about the patients? Let me speak to that person that had a hip replacement three years ago as a result of a mountain bike accident that I had and they found an infection. I asked to see the records and I understood that it came from the environment. And it was not from the infection of a body or a human. Never confirmed that I had it, but guess what I had to do, John?

John Ray: [00:17:00] What’s that?

Sam Perkins: [00:17:00] Well, I had to follow a six-week course of antibiotics three times a day followed by probiotics two hours after, and I had to do that for six weeks. Now, that’s when you get infected. 1.7 million people are having to go through this infection fight, and it’s no fun. I know this. So, this mission became very personal from that moment, let me assure you.

John Ray: [00:17:25] For sure.

Sam Perkins: [00:17:26] Yeah. So, now, we come back. I think the third area is employees. And for employees, it’s an issue of absenteeism. We’ve seen reductions of absenteeism anecdotally from 5% to 30%. That’s pretty dramatic. And the cost of replacing employees is significant in a hospital. And while we can’t frame exactly what that number is because there’s not enough experience with PurHospitals yet, but it’s a clear benefit that comes. Very measurable impacts.

Sam Perkins: [00:17:58] Put it in three sub-parts of the financial area, energy, operating and capital. So, on the energy side, you have all these giant fans and these big chillers that are operating, and they are probably up to 40% of the total energy bill, maybe 50 in many instances in the hospital. And because of what we do, we slow fans down. We make chillers operate more efficiently, and that is a very, very big number.

Sam Perkins: [00:18:31] We can pretty much assure in every instance, you’re going to see about a 3% to 6% reduction in total building energy from what we do. So, that’s the energy side. Operating savings come in the form of these giant cooling coils. Just think about your home air unit where you see these silver coils and things, that’s where the heat exchange happens. And in hospitals, we’ve got to clean them once, twice, sometimes, four times a year. They don’t have to do that anymore after we’ve installed.

Sam Perkins: [00:19:05] So, that’s a significant savings on that. And then, these things called HEPA filters, these filters are after the system to take out all these pathogens. That’s been the standard for years, but they change them out every quarter, maybe twice, four times a year. We have one customer that hasn’t changed their HEPA filters for three years. That’s a significant savings in the cost of those filters and the labor required to go put them and take them out and let’s not forget about waste and disposal, too.

John Ray: [00:19:35] Sure. Sure.

Sam Perkins: [00:19:36] So, all those are savings. And finally, here’s an interesting one. We installed at Washington and Lee University, so this is universal, doesn’t matter what the setting is. But the capital piece of it is interesting. They had 100,000 giant systems called 100,000 CFM is how we tell them, so it would be about, for them, $2.4 million to replace it. Well, if you’re a for-profit system, if I make those two air-handling units operate longer, this is where we get a little bit technical in ROI, but if I take systems $2.4 million worth of systems that you were going to replace and you don’t have to replace them now because what we do, we return them to performance, that $2.4 million, if you have a return on equity in your for-profit company, it’s worth a quarter million dollars a year to you because you redeploy it into areas where you can drive profit rather than a sunk cost like an air system. So, those are three things. Energy, operating cost, a capital cost. Combine that with absenteeism and infections, it’s a powerful ROI, John.

John Ray: [00:20:47] Yeah. It’s kind of mind-boggling. And something tells me that you’ve got a way—I mean, every hospital’s different. Something tells me you’ve got a way to kind of plug in the variables and show what the ROI is or the average internal rate of return for that investment.

Sam Perkins: [00:21:07] Absolutely. In fact, we make it so it’s virtually no out-of-pocket cost, plus it’s beautiful we’re doing this interview, you in Georgia, we had one project with Georgia Power, had granted us a pre-approval for a rebate, an energy rebate. So, we were able to come back and say, “Hey, customer, now, we’re going to make this so that your cost is spread across 60 months. We’re going to align that to all the savings that you have. We’ll guarantee on the energy and operating side that you will not be out of pocket. All these other benefits will be for free. Oh, and by the way, here’s a check from Georgia Power.”

John Ray: [00:21:45] You can’t beat that deal. That’s awesome.

Sam Perkins: [00:21:47] That’s true.

John Ray: [00:21:48] Yeah. Wow. Terrific. Folks, we’re speaking with Sam Perkins. And Sam is the CEO of Purgenix. So, Sam, we’ve walked all around the issue, but we need to dive into COVID-19 because you offer solutions there as well.

Sam Perkins: [00:22:11] Yes. Well, thank you. Yes, John. And because of the way we design our systems, we’re able to eliminate in one single pass 70% of the COVID-19 in a single pass in the air. It’s significant because the Daily Mail published an article, I think, week before last that they’re finding COVID-19 in air-handling ducts that we now saw this week, in fact, that they’re finding it can last in the air for up to three days. That’s the best estimate they have by the way.

John Ray: [00:22:47] Right.

Sam Perkins: [00:22:47] I believe it may be higher. And so, we’re in a place where we are going to be able to address the unknown. Let’s face it, it could last on surfaces. I’ve seen some people say up to eight days. So, think of it as if it goes airborne for three days, there are 96 air changes in a hospital, think about that. Ninety-six air changes for an hour, for three days, you’re approaching 300 opportunities for COVID-19 to be redistributed throughout that hospital.

John Ray: [00:23:26] Wow.

Sam Perkins: [00:23:28] I mean, that’s all theoretical, mind you, but it’s possible. And so, as a result, that’s just what we’re dealing with. And so, in the midst of all this, we are addressing it in that fashion. The more—here’s another important part of it though, and we don’t know what the answer is, yet that’s the challenge, but at least at Harrison Memorial, they’re likely to have a better answer than most, and that’s this, once you have a person with COVID-19, their immune system is obviously compromised, making them more susceptible to guess what, other infections, secondary infections. You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better environment which to fight COVID-19 than Harrison Memorial Hospital because of their infection rate that they’ve had that’s been so low for three years that the exciting part about it is—and so, it’s something where I can address it directly, frankly.

John Ray: [00:24:33] Right.

Sam Perkins: [00:24:34] And sorry for the dogs barking, but they’re kind of over at the backdoor, and I’m not. We’re going to go live with this. It’s kind of like, you know, you’re used to being in a studio setting and we’re just where we are today.

John Ray: [00:24:49] I just assumed there was some hospital folks knocking at the backdoor and they were barking at that. So, that’s-

Sam Perkins: [00:24:55] You’re breaking the door down to get in here.

John Ray: [00:24:58] Yeah, exactly. They’re looking for you because you’ve got some answers to the problems they’ve got. So-.

Sam Perkins: [00:25:03] That’s great. That’s great.

John Ray: [00:25:05] Yeah.

Sam Perkins: [00:25:05] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:25:05] So, talk about what this involves because when you’re talking about—I mean, you’re not replacing an air handling system, but you are doing an installation. What does that involve? How long does it take? In other words, how quickly can you bring a solution to a hospital’s issues?

Sam Perkins: [00:25:26] Well, it requires design. So, how quickly can you build a building? You first have to make sure that you have the structural engineer on it, right? So, in order to get this airborne, every air-handling system has a very, very different performance metric, different air velocities, speed, different temperatures, all this impacts how you’re going to design it. And so, we do an assessment of the air-handling unit. And then, from there, the implementation can be pretty fast. So, for example, at Harrison Memorial Hospital, once we had the pre-engineering completed and we manufactured the system specifically for each area in the unit and installed them from beginning to end, it was about nine weeks, which is pretty fast for a custom delivery of a solution.

John Ray: [00:26:19] Oh, wow. Absolutely. And then, after the installation, judging by what you’ve done with Harrison, you’re keeping pretty close tabs on the payback of that installation.

Sam Perkins: [00:26:33] Yeah, that’s right. Well, we are. There are smaller hospital, they don’t have specifics, but they’ll tell you, for example, that their air-handling systems had dropped by 20 percent in terms of their energy consumption. And since that comprises about 50%t of their energy consumption at that particular hospital, they’ve seen a 10% reduction in their energy cost. Now, the reality of it is that they don’t see it completely because they put a brand-new section on the building. We installed across that one new area in the unit, but the remaining 13 or so were all old ones, and they have energy recovery and all of those. And we stopped the new one from becoming, shall I say, impaired.

John Ray: [00:27:22] Got you.

Sam Perkins: [00:27:23] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:27:25] Got you. So, just trying to get out with this question, who is a good fit for the technology you bring to bear? I mean, Harrison’s a smaller hospital in the scheme of things. I mean, how big of a hospital plant can you service?

Sam Perkins: [00:27:47] Any hospital, frankly. Now, this is a unique point in time and I look forward to the issue of how to scale, frankly. And I think that COVID-19 has created a background for conversation around the invisible enemy that has never been there before. Certainly, our entire economy has been disrupted by an invisible enemy. It now makes the point that why are we getting all these infections in hospitals and while it may be finally transmitted by touch, questions how to get there.

Sam Perkins: [00:28:20] And my answer has been that don’t think of an air system as something you’re breathing in, but think of it more like a shower of germs coming down on top of you. Stop the shower, stop the infections. If it’s not there, it can’t be transmitted. So, I think that conversation has changed because this COVID-19 and the things that are happening because now, people understand, “Hey, maybe we do have an invisible energy and we want to be more like Mark Haney and have a building working for us, not against us.”

John Ray: [00:28:47] Yes.

Sam Perkins: [00:28:48] So, the answer is any hospital, but, you know, there are other applications. You’re sitting in Georgia, and I’ve always wanted to and have not had the opportunity to get to the Georgia Aquarium. Think about this for a moment, John. I suspect that all the mammals that are inside that aquarium have to be fed probably some anti-fungals and antibiotics. And why would that be? And you think about it, any mammal in the middle of the ocean has been playing around or even penguins, you know, they don’t deal with fungus or human bacteria. And you’re putting them into a building, where there’s a whole bunch of humans, and Charles Schulz by the way almost had it right with his characters, so here you go, I think you’ll like this, is that the best image to have is everybody is a pig pen.

John Ray: [00:29:40] Nobody wants to hear that, but it’s true, right?

Sam Perkins: [00:29:45] It is true.

John Ray: [00:29:45] Right.

Sam Perkins: [00:29:46] So, he always had it right. You know, the cloud that you’re carrying just varies and you just don’t want to be around someone that has a cloud of COVID-19 right now. That’s kind of the way I think of it as a pig pen.

John Ray: [00:29:57] Sure.

Sam Perkins: [00:29:58] So, if you take all this collection of people in the Georgia Aquarium, one, you have the same kind of recirculating system. We did put a system in there a long time ago for one installation, but they need to cover the—for example, covering the entire aquarium would be great. Can you imagine PurAquarium, and it didn’t quite smell like an aquarium because we alter that environment, just like a hospital or how about another one? A corporate headquarters. So, you have people coming internationally, at least you used to, internationally in your headquarters, you don’t know what they’re carrying, what illness there is.

Sam Perkins: [00:30:34] And that corporate headquarters is not designed any differently than a hospital other than they’re not using HEPA filters. And so, these same germs, these pig pens come in and out at the corporate headquarters. There are germs that are going up in the air system, festering, growing and being redistributed. We had one customer a long, long time ago, John, we had an employee that came up and said, “Hey, I got this sickness from being in this building.” And they took that employee upstairs, showed them the installation that we had and said, “You did not get it here because that does not get through this”, right?

John Ray: [00:31:11] Yeah. Wow.

Sam Perkins: [00:31:12] So, I think there’s going to be a potential in the area of corporate headquarters. There’s going to be a potential for aquariums, in particular. And how about the fact that we’re in 37 buildings on the Emory campus. They’re not PurBuildings, they’d be PurBuilding-eligible. And by the way, Emory has the largest collection of PurBuilding-eligible buildings in the United States. Second is Washington and Lee University. But now, imagine you’re a parent and you’re sending your child off to college, well, they shut them down, why? Well, because they’re in buildings where they could share, and what if you could block the sharing through PurBuilding?

John Ray: [00:31:53] Right. Wow.

Sam Perkins: [00:31:53] There are a lot of applications. But right now, I think if I had to choose between, you know, capacity, I’m going to throw it at health care because that’s our most vulnerable population right now. And we would have to figure out how to expand out to those others because I have a sense in about two to three months, we’re going to have a line.

John Ray: [00:32:13] Yeah. Sounds like it. Sam Perkins is with us folks, CEO of Purgenix. Sam, this has been awesome. Maybe we ought to let you go and take calls from hospitals at this point. But for-

Sam Perkins: [00:32:30] Actually, this is kind of funny, John, but investment bankers that wouldn’t take my phone call three weeks ago are now calling me.

John Ray: [00:32:41] Imagine that. Nothing like an opportunistic investment banker, right?

Sam Perkins: [00:32:45] Well, let’s face it, they’re in it to make a profit, right?

John Ray: [00:32:49] Of course. Of course. They’re-

Sam Perkins: [00:32:51] I’m happy to take their calls because I’m having very nice conversations about something I love, which is, we’re protecting patients and people inside of hospitals and when you have that as a mission, that’s a pretty awesome life, let me tell you.

John Ray: [00:33:05] So true. Outstanding. Sam Perkins, folks, CEO of Purgenix. So, Sam, for those that would like more information, would like to be in touch, tell them how they could do that.

Sam Perkins: [00:33:17] Sure. If you have Twitter, I have a funny name, but it’s @three50one, T-H-R-E-E-50-O-N-E. You can certainly connect with me on LinkedIn and just let me know in both instances that you heard me on this program and I’ll connect with you. I get several requests, as you might imagine, but if you heard on the radio show and you want to connect, just let me know and we’ll connect there. You can always DM me on that. Otherwise, if you want more information directly, you can always reach me on my email address which is sam@purgenix, P-U-R-G-E-N-I-X, .net.

John Ray: [00:34:04] Awesome. Sam Perkins, thanks for being with us.

Sam Perkins: [00:34:07] John, it was a pleasure. Thank you for helping us spread that there is good news even in these times.

John Ray: [00:34:14] Absolutely. Thanks again.

Sam Perkins: [00:34:16] Thank you.

John Ray: [00:34:17] Folks, just a reminder that you can listen to this show every Thursday morning live at 11:30. If you miss any of our live shows—and we also have special shows throughout the week, but if you missed any of our shows, we’re Podcast Space. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms, that’s Apple, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Overcast, happens to be my favorite. We’re even on YouTube. So, just check us out on any of your favorite podcast apps. Also, we’re online at alpharettatechtalk.com. You can find our complete archive of shows there and follow us on social media channels, North Fulton BRX is our handle on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. So, for my guest, Sam Perkins, I’m John Ray. Join us next time here on Alpharetta Tech Talk.

About “Alpharetta Tech Talk”

“Alpharetta Tech Talk” is the radio show/podcast home of the burgeoning technology sector in Alpharetta and the surrounding GA 400 and North Fulton area. We feature key technology players from a dynamic region of over 900 technology companies. “Alpharetta Tech Talk” comes to you from from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®, located inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Past episodes of “Alpharetta Tech Talk” can be found at alpharettatechtalk.com.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with approximately $12.9 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you.