Where it started
The first module came before the first customer.
In 2021 we bought a Care222® module from Ushio Europe — the filtered krypton-chloride source that Columbia University's research is built on — to understand the light first-hand before representing it to anyone. That same year G.Z. Icarus 222 Ltd was registered in Nicosia and appointed the authorised distributor of UV Medico's UV222® devices for Cyprus, Greece and the United Kingdom film industry.
None of that came out of the lighting trade. It came out of a conviction, shared by people from communication, engineering, medicine and business, that a light which disinfects a room while people are in it changes what a safe room means — and that somebody had to bring it here properly: measured, documented and inside the European exposure limit.
The name
Icarus flew towards the sun. 222 is the wavelength at which you can.
Ultraviolet light has always been the part of sunlight that burns. At 222 nanometres it is stopped by the dead outer layer of skin and the tear film of the eye, and reaches nothing living — while it still reaches every microbe in the air. The name is the whole idea in two words: the light, and the number that makes it safe.
The invention, from Columbia to Ushio →
Where the light has gone
Year by year, country by country.
2021
Nicosia
G.Z. Icarus 222 Ltd is registered in Cyprus. The first Care222® module arrives from Ushio Europe. Distribution agreement with UV Medico A/S, Denmark, for Cyprus, Greece and the UK film industry.
2022
Doha
The first devices leave the island — shipped to an air-purification company in Qatar. Our first export, before our first installation.
2023
Athens
January: the first installation in Greece, at PharmaServe-Lilly. May: an independent dermatological opinion on the safety of 222 nm is commissioned in Athens, so that what we say about skin comes from a specialist, not from a brochure.
2024
Greece · GMP
VIANEX Plant A: the first installation inside pharmaceutical production under GMP, and the beginning of the cleanroom work that now defines the company.
2025
Greece · Cyprus
VIANEX Plant C follows. In December, Lifeline — the umbilical cord blood and tissue bank in Nicosia — becomes the first installation in Cyprus.
2026
Nicosia · Athens
Our first hospital: the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre in Nicosia. VIANEX's two general managers put their recommendation in writing. Our best year so far — and the first conversations with the public health system in Cyprus.
Dates from our own order and installation records.
Three territories
Two countries, and one industry.
Cyprus
Head office in Nicosia. Site studies, installation and commissioning across the island; stock held locally for small installations.
Greece
Where most of our installed base is. A colleague based in Athens carries out site visits, installation and commissioning across the country, with electricians trained by UV Medico.
United Kingdom · film and television
Our distribution covers the UK film industry: crews working close together on schedules that cannot slip, in studios and on location, where a light that works with people present is the only kind that helps.
The people
Small on purpose.
Every site study is written by the person who will stand in the room. Every installation is supervised by us and carried out by installers trained by the manufacturer.
Director · Nicosia
Frixos Georgallides
Creative director by training — School of Visual Arts, New York — he founded and ran one of Cyprus's leading advertising agencies from 1993 to 2013, and works today as a communication consultant. He has led Icarus 222 since its first module in 2021: the site studies, the client relationships and the case that far-UVC belongs in every shared room.
Greece · site visits, installation, commissioning
Pavlos Ierodiakonou
Based in Athens. Walks every Greek site before a study is written, coordinates the installation with the client's facilities and QA teams, and hands each system over running — with settings locked and documentation delivered.
Behind us
UV Medico A/S in Aarhus, who build the devices and train our installers · Ushio, who build the Care222® module inside them · and Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research, where the idea was proven. The chain of title is public, and every link in it is on the Invention page.
How we work
Six things we will not trade away.
01
Continuous, not episodic.
The point of this technology is that it runs while the room is in use. We do not sell it as a faster way to disinfect an empty one.
02
To the European limit, for everyone in the room.
Every installation is designed to Directive 2006/25/EC — 22.8 mJ/cm² over eight hours at 222 nm — for patients and visitors as much as for workers, although the law only names the workers.
03
Every number with its source.
Figures on this site are cited. A study is credited to the lamp that was actually in the room, even when it was not ours.
04
We say what we do not claim.
Not zero ozone, not a replacement for cleaning or ventilation, not effective in shadow, not a medical device. The list is on the Technology page, in full.
05
Your room layout is yours.
We publish client names, with their agreement, and never configurations. A supplier who shows your contamination controls on a website has shown them to your competitor.
06
Transparent with the public sector.
G.Z. Icarus 222 Ltd is entered in the register kept by Cyprus's Independent Authority against Corruption under the Transparency in Public Decision-Making Law of 2022, and every meeting with a public official is declared.
Five years in, the brief has not changed.
Tell us which room you are protecting and we will model it before anything is quoted.