Highlight from Kinnos Earns Honors in Fast Company’s 2023 Innovation by Design Awards

Innovative colorization technology recognized by Fast Company for ability to improve cleaning quality in hospitals by 95%, helping to create a safer world


BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 23, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kinnos today announced that Highlight®, its novel technology for colorizing disinfectants, earned an Honorable Mention in Fast Company’s 2023 Innovation by Design Awards in the Health category. Recognized for the transformational ability to make cleaning visible, Kinnos’ innovative Highlight technology has been shown to improve cleaning quality by up to 95%, giving hospitals a powerful new way to fight a rising tide of infectious diseases and establish higher standards in infection prevention.

Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards is a prestigious program recognizing and honoring designers and businesses solving the most crucial issues of today and anticipating the problems of tomorrow. Infection prevention is a pressing global concern as the spread of multi-drug resistant organisms compounds the already-elevated risks of outbreaks and disease. Highlight from Kinnos has been proven to dramatically improve cleaning quality within hospital settings, helping break the chain of infection and better protect the world’s most vulnerable patients.

“This award is a tremendous validation of the hard work the entire Kinnos team has put into developing Highlight as a patented technology solution able to work seamlessly and effectively with a wide range of commercially available disinfectants,” said Kinnos CEO Steve Fanning. “Fast Company’s program considers the design strategies and decisions that ultimately enable a product to be successful and have an impact at scale. The chemistry and utility of Highlight are critical to its efficacy and a big part of why it’s helping to reset the standards for infection prevention in healthcare today.”

Disinfectants are traditionally clear, making it difficult to assess the proper coverage and cleaning of contaminated surfaces. Inspired by their previous experience fighting Ebola in West Africa, the founders of Kinnos developed Highlight as a colorizing technology for commercially available disinfectants.

Specifically, Highlight for Wipes is a printer-ink cartridge device that attaches onto disinfectant canisters and colorizes wipes as they are dispensed. The colorized wipes leave behind a blue trace on surfaces to provide real-time visualization of surface coverage and then the color fades away after a few minutes. By making cleaning visible, Highlight rapidly improves cleaning quality, helping prevent the spread of surface-borne pathogens.

In a peer-reviewed study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology this year, Highlight was found to measurably improve cleaning quality by as much as 95%. This is important as studies consistently reveal that less than 50% of high-touch surfaces in healthcare settings are adequately disinfected. Poorly cleaned surfaces can result in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which impact millions of patients and lead to billions in direct costs every year in the United States alone.  

To learn more about Highlight, please visit https://kinnos.com/

About Kinnos
Founded during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Kinnos is pioneering ways to more optimally employ proven disinfectants for a safer healing environment amidst a rising tide of infections globally. The company’s flagship product is Highlight, a patented, award-winning, and hospital-grade color additive platform that improves technique and compliance for the gold standard in disinfection. Already in use by hospitals, first responders, and transit agencies around the world, Highlight's real-time color visualization platform has been shown in independent studies to consistently increase thoroughness of cleaning. Kinnos is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. www.kinnos.com.

Media Contact:
Lynn Wallace
Cosmo PR for Kinnos
707-738-6070
lynn@cosmo-pr.com