In response to the 2001 Anthrax spore attacks, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”) and a leading defense company, Titan Corporation, developed BIT™ to defend against chemical and biological agents under a DARPA grant.
In June 2005, L-3Communications, Inc. (“L-3”) a leading defense company, acquired the technology through the acquisition of Titan Corporation.
In 2011, TOMI recognized the importance of this disruptive and innovative technology and, after two years of negotiations, in April 2013, won the right to purchase the technology from L-3.
Subsequently, we began the long process of registering BIT™ with the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), using good laboratory practice testing, as a hospital-healthcare disinfectant. TOMI introduced SteraMist™ to the commercial market in June 2013, using our inherited and pre-existing EPA mold label.
In June 2015, we successfully registered SteraMist™ BIT™ as a hospital-healthcare disinfectant for use as a misting/fogging agent, at which time it became the first EPA-registered hospital-healthcare and general disinfectant registered solution and technology disinfection system on the market.
TOMI’s cold plasma technology produces ionized Hydrogen Peroxide (iHP™), a mist/fog consisting of Reactive Oxygen Species, mainly hydroxyl radicals (“OH”).
The technology converts TOMI’s BIT™ solution, a low-percentage hydrogen peroxide solution, the only active ingredient of BIT™, to OH by passing it through an atmospheric cold plasma arc.