Category: News This Week

  • Zimbabwe: More Money From Less Tobacco

    Zimbabwe: More Money From Less Tobacco

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Zimbabwe has sold 201.05 million kg of tobacco worth US$614.27 million since the marketing season opened in March, reports The Star, citing statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.

    While being close to matching last year’s output, the value of the crop sold so far this year has surpassed last year’s figure, reflecting firmer prices due to good quality leaf. During the same period in 2021, Zimbabwe’s tobacco growers sold 207.18 million kg for US$578.78 million.

    Despite being grown under difficult conditions characterized by erratic rainfall, the seasonal price averaged above US$3 per kg compared to US$2.79 per kg last year.

    Ninety-five percent of Zimbabwe’s tobacco crop is grown under the contract system. Only 5 percent of farmers self-finance their crop production, which they then sell through auction floors.

    Zimbabwe’s tobacco auction season officially closed July 20, but contract sales are still ongoing.

  • Keating to lead Imperial’s U.K./Ireland Corporate Affairs

    Keating to lead Imperial’s U.K./Ireland Corporate Affairs

    Photo: Casimirokt | Dreamstime.com

    Imperial Tobacco has appointed Lindsay Mennell Keating as head of corporate and legal affairs for the U.K. and Ireland, reports Talking Retail.

    Previously, Keating held the positions of head of corporate affairs EU and senior government affairs manager at Imperial Tobacco. Prior to joining the business in 2014, she worked as a public affairs and communications consultant in Brussels.

    “I am delighted to be heading up the corporate and legal affairs team at Imperial Tobacco and welcome the opportunity to work closely with our trade partners as the tobacco and next-generation categories continue to evolve,” said Keating.

    “The government’s forthcoming Tobacco Control Plan will present a period of regulatory change, and I look forward to building on our existing networks to ensure our customers are in a strong position to successfully manage these changes.”

  • Judge Boosts PM’s Infringement Award

    Judge Boosts PM’s Infringement Award

    Photo: New Africa

    R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. owes Philip Morris Products more than $14 million after a federal judge on Aug. 17 increased a jury’s June patent-infringement award over vapor products to include prejudgment interest and supplemental damages, reports Bloomberg Law.

    Judge Leonie M. Brinkema amended the judgment entered June 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to reflect a total judgment amount of $10.9 million for infringement of one patent and $3.16 million for infringement of another.

    In its June 15 judgement, the jury found that RJR’s Vuse Solo and Alto devices infringe two Philip Morris patents covering parts of a vaping device for heating substances and preventing leaks. At the same time, the jury cleared Vuse Alto of infringing one of the patents.

    The verdict concerned counterclaims in RJR’s ongoing patent lawsuit over PMI’s IQOS heated-tobacco device. RJR won an order blocking IQOS imports at the U.S. International Trade Commission last November.

    Philip Morris succeeded earlier this year in invalidating parts of some patents RJR accused it of infringing at a U.S. Patent Office tribunal.

    RJR parent company BAT has also sued Philip Morris over IQOS in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere. A PMI filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year said IQOS patent lawsuits and challenges outside of the U.S. have “repeatedly and universally failed.”

    Altria has separately sued Reynolds for patent infringement in North Carolina over the Vuse line.

  • FDA Warns VPR Over Nicotine Gummies

    FDA Warns VPR Over Nicotine Gummies

    Photo: Ljupco Smokovski

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Aug. 18 issued a warning letter to VPR Brands (doing business as Krave Nic) for marketing illegal flavored nicotine gummies—the first warning letter for this type of product.

    According to the FDA, these types of gummies are of particular public concern because of their resemblance to kid-friendly food or candy products and the potential to cause severe nicotine toxicity or even death among young children.

    VPR Brands markets gummies that have 1 mg of nicotine each and are available in three flavors – Blueraz, Cherry Bomb and Pineapple. The packaging claims that the products contain tobacco-free nicotine. This firm has not submitted a premarket tobacco product application to the FDA, and does not have a marketing authorization order to manufacture, sell or distribute these products in the U.S.

    “Nicotine gummies are a public health crisis just waiting to happen among our nation’s youth, particularly as we head into a new school year,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf in a statement. “We want parents to be aware of these products and the potential for health consequences for children of all ages—including toxicity to young children and appeal of these addictive products to our youth. The FDA will not stand by as illegal products infiltrate the marketplace.”

  • Respira Appoints Brian Quigley as CEO

    Respira Appoints Brian Quigley as CEO

    Photo: jirsak

    Respira Technologies as appointed former Altria Group executive and current Respira COO Brian Quigley as its new CEO. Respira’s founder, Mario Danek, will transition to the role of chief technology officer.

    Quigley spent 16 years at Altria Group, with seven years as president and CEO at Altria’s smokeless and innovative products/vapor businesses. Quigley has been an active investor in both the cannabis and alcohol spaces and sits on the boards of Mustgrow Biologics and Belle Isle Craft Spirits.

    With Respira in the midst of securing financing for clinical trials, Danek made a significant change to the structure of the company’s leadership team. Quigley’s background as a successful business leader and Fortune 150 CEO in the space will help drive Respira to its next phase as it advances to an investigational new drug submission to begin human clinical trials. This transition will enable Danek to focus on the technology behind Respira, concentrating on inventing and refining its innovative inhalation device across multiple potential indication areas and target markets.

    Respira is a California venture-backed health tech company focused on commercializing proprietary inhalation device technologies to improve patient outcomes. The company is currently engaged with U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Drug Evaluation and Research  to pursue a combination product authorization as the first inhalable prescription smoking cessation therapy.

  • Study: Vaping Reduces Heart Risks Compared to Smoking

    Study: Vaping Reduces Heart Risks Compared to Smoking

    Photo: New Africa

    A new study carried out by the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction in Sicily confirms that vaping presents a lower risk to heart health than does smoking.

    The researchers replicated a 2017 BAT study, which demonstrated that the endothelial cell migration inhibition caused by cigarette smoke is not caused by e-cigarette aerosol exposure. (The endothelium is a membrane lining the heart and blood vessels).

    Using the Vype ePen3 and the heated-tobacco products Glo Pro and IQOS 3 Duo, the Replica study corroborated the findings of the BAT study.

    Riccardo Polosa

    “The interesting fact is that switching to combustion-free products reduces vascular damages and prevents the possibility of the onset of smoking-related diseases, such as arteriosclerosis and hypertension,” said Massimo Caruso, an author of the study. “Once again, our research has challenged the notion that e-cigarettes or heated tobacco cause similar damage to that of combustible cigarettes.”

    The study is part of the Replica Project, whose mission is to replicate studies conducted by tobacco companies—whose research is routinely dismissed as conflicted—in order to independently assess their scientific validity.

    “By replicating the findings generated by tobacco industry studies on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, we are proving that these results are robust and trustworthy,” CoEHAR founder Riccardo Polosa told Filter.

  • PAHO Reports Progress Against Smoking

    PAHO Reports Progress Against Smoking

    Photo: laboko

    Some 900 million people, or 96 percent of the population, of the 35 countries of the Americas are currently protected by at least one of the six tobacco control measures recommended by the World Health Organization, up 50 percent from 2007, according to a new report by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

    While 26 countries in the region have achieved the highest level of application of at least one measure, other measures, such as increased tobacco taxes, have made slow progress, and nine countries have not yet taken any action.

    The report shows that, in 2021, of 35 countries in the Americas:

    • 24 are implementing measures to protect against exposure to secondhand smoke;
    • 22 require large graphic warnings on tobacco packages;
    • 10 have surveillance systems with data on tobacco use;
    • six offer a comprehensive system to help people quit smoking;
    • nine ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship;
    • three apply indirect taxes to cigarettes that account for at least 75 percent of the retail price; and
    • seven ban the sale of electronic nicotine-delivery systems.

    According to the PAHO, progress in the application of the World Health Organization’s MPOWER principles has helped reduce the prevalence of tobacco use from 28 percent of the region’s population in 2000 to 16.3 percent in 2020, the second lowest in the world. In 2020, South America became the first smoke-free subregion of the Americas, where smoking is absolutely prohibited in enclosed public places, in workplaces and on public transport.

    The PAHO report warns that new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes, are becoming increasingly available and accessible. The group urges governments to enact regulations that prevent nonsmokers from starting to use these products and prevent tobacco use from becoming socially acceptable again.

  • Vaping May Reduce Smoking Without Increasing Dependence

    Vaping May Reduce Smoking Without Increasing Dependence

    Photo: pavelkant

    E-cigarettes may help people decrease their dependence on combustible cigarettes without increasing their overall nicotine dependence, according to a recent Penn State College of Medicine study.

    The researchers enrolled 520 participants interested in reducing their cigarette intake but with no plans or interest to quit smoking and instructed them to reduce their cigarette consumption over the six-month study period. Participants randomly received an e-cigarette that delivered 36, 8 or 0 mg/mL of nicotine, or a cigarette substitute that contained no tobacco, as an aid in their efforts to reduce their cigarette consumption.

    At six months, all participants in the e-cigarette groups reported significant, decreased cigarette consumption, with those in the 36 mg/mL group smoking the least number of cigarettes per day. Those in the e-cigarette groups reported significantly lower dependence on the Penn State Cigarette Dependence Index than those in the cigarette substitute group.

    “Our results suggest that using e-cigarettes or a cigarette substitute to reduce cigarette consumption can result in a reduction of self-reported cigarette use and dependence,” said Jessica Yingst, who directs the College of Medicine’s Doctor of Public Health Program. “Importantly, use of the high-concentration e-cigarette did not increase overall nicotine dependence and was associated with a greater reduction in cigarette smoking compared to the cigarette substitute.”

  • Disposables Thriving

    Disposables Thriving

    Photo: Mikhail Reshetnikov

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s focus on preventing sales of flavored vaping products by well-known mass-market brands and open-system products has created a parallel gray market of little-known disposable brands, according to industry expert Jim McDonald.

    Writing for Vaping360, McDonald cites figures from the Chicago market research firm IRI showing that the disposable vape sales in the United States have grown from less than 2 percent of the convenience store e-cigarette market to 33 percent in three years.

    The growth of the disposable market is a direct result of FDA actions. In January 2020, the agency banned most flavored e-cigarettes. The policy, however, permitted all flavors to be sold in devices that cannot be refilled and are designed to be disposed of after the flavored nicotine has run dry.

    In 2018, then market leader Juul Labs was pressured into removing most of its flavored pods from the market in response to concerns about youth vaping.

    The crackdown on flavored products sold in the regulated market coincided with the growth of the disposable gray market, which was largely unknown to regulators and the national news media.

    None of the disposable vapes that are currently popular have received authorization from the FDA, although some disposable manufacturers have submitted premarket tobacco product applications, and some have challenged FDA marketing denial orders (MDOs) in court or through FDA administrative appeals.

    McDonald says the developments bode ill for the vaping policies in the U.S. and elsewhere. “It will be the suckers that submitted applications and made good-faith efforts to comply with the agency’s regulations that get MDOs and warning letters while the gray market sellers will change their product names and laugh at the clumsy regulator,” he writes.

  • Patients Concerned Over Tobacco-Owned Lung Treatments

    Patients Concerned Over Tobacco-Owned Lung Treatments

    Photo: bydvvid

    Seventy percent of respondents to an international survey conducted earlier this year said they are either “bothered” or “really bothered” when tobacco companies make money from an inhaler, medication or other devices that treat their lung conditions.

    The findings are available in a newly published communications brief, “Tobacco industry ownership of pharmaceutical companies: an international survey of people with respiratory disease,” in Thorax, the official journal of the British Thoracic Society.

    A total of 1,196 people who reported inhaler use completed the survey in early 2022.

    After Philip Morris International acquired pharmaceutical company Vectura in 2021, patient advocacy groups wanted to understand patients’ attitudes toward tobacco organizations’ stake in the companies that make their respiratory inhaler devices. Vectura develops several widely used medical delivery devices and/or formulations for inhaled therapies used in people with chronic lung diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.

    The COPD Foundation partnered with Global Allergy and Airways Patient Platform and Lung Foundation Australia to conduct the survey among people with chronic lung diseases in English, Spanish and German between January and March of 2022.

    In addition to expressing concern about tobacco ownership of lung treatments, a significant share (48 percent) of patients surveyed also said they would strongly consider switching inhalers if they knew that a tobacco company made or sold their brand of an inhaler.

    “This was an unexpected finding, as many patients in my own practice indicated a preference to stick to medications that work for them,” said Byron Thomashow, chief medical officer at the COPD Foundation, and co-author of the Thorax brief in a statement. “However, socioeconomic, and systemic factors such as insurance coverage, health care system limitations, and convenience strongly influence the patient’s ability to make treatment choices.”