Category: Technology

  • A burning question

    A burning question

    British American Tobacco is due today to describe at a conference in Warsaw, Poland, how five criteria can be used to establish whether tobacco is being burnt or heated in a tobacco-heating product (THP).

    The conference, the Global Forum on Nicotine, is being held at the Marriott Centrum Hotel, Warsaw, on June 15-17.

    The main GFN program, which is scheduled for June 16 and 17, will examine the rapidly developing science in relation to nicotine use and the changing landscape, including policy responses and the influence of different stakeholders in this.

    Whether tobacco is heated or burnt is important because it determines the chemical composition of the vapor produced. The very high temperatures at which cigarettes burn mean that there are more than 100 chemicals formed that are thought to be associated with the development of smoking-related diseases.

    ‘THPs are one of several new categories of product being designed as alternatives to conventional cigarettes – electronic cigarettes are a well-known example,’ BAT said in a pre-conference press note.

    ‘The burning zone in a cigarette can reach temperatures of between 600 and 950̊ºC, whereas in THPs, the temperature is hundreds of degrees lower. It is high enough to release nicotine and flavorings but not so high as to result in the burning of the tobacco and the creation of many of the very high temperature smoke toxicants thought to be involved in the development of the serious diseases associated with smoking. THPs therefore produce emissions that contain fewer toxicants and as a result have the potential to be significantly reduced risk compared to conventional cigarettes.’

    BAT said that though various THPs were commercially available, they differed in the way they heated tobacco and in their temperature characteristics. And currently, there was no standard way of assessing whether a product was mainly heating rather than burning tobacco. So, scientists at BAT had developed a five-step approach to comprehensively assess this aspect of a THP.

    “To ensure a THP is producing an aerosol by heating rather than burning tobacco, it is important to characterise the way the tobacco is heated,” Dr. Chuan Liu, head of THP science at BAT, was quoted as saying.

    “Our five-step approach provides a comprehensive yet practical assessment irrespective of the heating mechanism in the device.”

    The five steps are:

    Step 1: ‘Measure any physical or chemical changes in the tobacco as it is heated all the way to cigarette combustion temperature to identify the safe temperature window for THP operation. In glo, British American Tobacco’s THP, the maximum heating temperature is set below 245ºC.

    Step 2:  ‘Establish the maximum temperature the tobacco is heated to and how long it is heated for when the THP is actually used…

    Step 3: ‘Analyse the levels of the following combustion products: CO, CO2, NO and NOx produced by the device when heating tobacco. These are key markers for tobacco that is heated to high temperatures or burnt. Their levels should be much lower than those found in the emissions of a reference cigarette.

    Step 4: ‘Measure the level of emissions of a range of other known cigarette smoke toxicants potentially produced by the device. For example, some aldehydes are known to be formed by low-temperature decompositions of carbohydrates. Their levels can be used to judge the extent by which we control this low-temperature breakdown.

    Step 5: ‘Examine the physical integrity of the tobacco rod after it has been heated in the device, to assess the extent of any degradation from heating to high temperatures or burning. No charring or ash should be formed.’

  • BAT glowing in Japan

    BAT glowing in Japan

    British American Tobacco said today that the performance of its heated-tobacco product, glo, in Sendai, Japan, was continuing to exceed its expectations.

    Presenting its First Half Pre-Close Trading Update 2017, the company added that it was on track for further ‘Japanese and international rollout in the second half’.

    ‘In vapor, our share growth in Western Europe continues and we are making encouraging progress with the rollout of Vype Pebble,’ BAT said in a note posted on its website.

    ‘A city test of Vype e-Pen III is on track for Q4.’

    Meanwhile, the company said that, as highlighted in February, its first-half volumes were ‘lapping a strong prior year comparator’ and would be impacted by the phasing of shipments in some key markets, including Pakistan.

    ‘Full year volume is expected to outperform the industry, which we anticipate will be down around four percent,’ the company said.

    ‘We expect our market share to continue to grow, driven by the GDBs [global drive brands].

    ‘Trading in our key markets continues to reflect the trends discussed at the preliminary results in February with Canada, Romania, Bangladesh and Ukraine performing well and conditions remaining challenging in Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, France and the UK.’

    BAT said that its first-half revenue was expected to benefit from good pricing.

    ‘As previously stated, profit growth is expected to be weighted to the second half of the year, mainly due to the timing of volume shipments, as well as the phasing of NGP [new generation product] investments and marketing spend,’ the company said.

    ‘If exchange rates stayed the same for the remainder of the year, there would be an adverse transactional impact on operating profit of two percent for both the first half and the full year. For translation, this would be a tailwind on operating profit of approximately 13 percent for the half year and seven percent for the full year.

    ‘First half EPS is expected to benefit from a significant translational foreign exchange tailwind of around 14 percent.’

  • PMI investing in Russia

    PMI investing in Russia

    Philip Morris International intends to invest 2.49 billion rubles (US$42 million) in modernizing its factory in the Leningrad region of Russia, according to a Construction.RU story.

    Construction.RU said that it had been told on Tuesday by the regional administration’s press office that the work was due to be carried out in 2017-18.

    It said the project would be one of biggest to have been undertaken in the region for years.

    Following completion of the modernization, Russia would follow Italy in becoming a base for the manufacture of tobacco sticks for heated-tobacco products.

    Last month, PMI said that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Papastratos, had begun transforming its factory in Aspropyrgos, a suburb of Athens, Greece, into a producer of tobacco sticks to be used in PMI’s iQOS heated-tobacco product.

    The plan was to use Greece as one of the PMI’s bases to produce sticks for exports to more than 30 countries by the end of 2017.

  • Kaymich software extended

    Kaymich software extended

    The adhesive-application and fluid-control systems supplier, C.B. Kaymich, said yesterday that it had developed its Gemini Data Capture software to include the option of barcoding.

    ‘The Gemini Data Capture software is a quality assurance package, providing batch traceability of filters, foil or cigarette,’ Kaymich said in a press note.

    ‘Originally developed for the production of mentholated foil bobbins, the barcode printer enabled users to quickly and easily apply a label which identified what the foil bobbin was, when it was made and which brand it was for.

    ‘The concept was then developed further to provide the same capability for any batch production resulting in the add-on product now available for the Gemini Flavour Application System.’

    “This additional Gemini capability makes it incredibly simple and easy to identify the brand and examine all the production settings for the finished product”, said Kaymich’s Tim Williams.

    “The system can be configured to suit the company’s specific process needs and even to offer personalised user permissions.

    “Put simply, it allows users to record production settings for later analysis and better understanding of each production batch.”

    More information about the Gemini Data Capture is at: www.kaymich.com.

  • Registration open

    Registration open

    The Tax-Free World Association (TFWA) has opened registration for its new exhibition, the TFWA Digital Village.

    TFWA Digital Village is scheduled to run alongside the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference, which is due to be held at the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France, on October 1-6.

    It will start with an opening cocktail reception at Hotel Barrière Le Majestic on October 3 and run until October 6. It will be held in the Gare Maritime, an exhibition area beside the Palais des Festivals.

    Among the speakers at the conference on October 2 will be David Rowan, editor-at-large of the technology and trends magazine WIRED UK, who will describe how the advance of technology will impact the duty free and travel retail industry.

    TFWA Digital Village will feature TFWA’s ONE2ONE meeting service, a personalised appointment service that provides opportunities for exhibitors to meet with decision makers and senior executives keen to embrace new technology.

    “To thrive in this digital age, the duty free and travel retail industry needs to embrace digital technology,” Erik Juul-Mortensen, president of TFWA was quoted as saying in a press note issued by the TFWA.

    “As the industry celebrates its 70th anniversary, this new venture will help to keep our business on track to move forward in a technology-centric world, and will allow brands and retailers to find out more about the leading players in this important field.

    “Similarly, the duty free and travel retail industry, valued at US$63.6 billion in 2016 by research commissioned by TFWA, is a market of enormous potential for innovative technology providers, making this the perfect platform to forge partnerships that will benefit both parties.”

    More information about the TFWA Digital Village is at: http://www.tfwa.com.

  • Hybrid device less risky

    Hybrid device less risky

    British American Tobacco has said that new laboratory data has revealed that vapor from its novel hybrid tobacco heating product (THP), iFuse, and two standard THPs produced little or no effect on human cells in biological testing.

    “Our results suggest that these standard THPs and our novel hybrid product have the potential to reduce smoking-related disease risks when compared with cigarette smoking,” Dr. James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT was quoted as saying in a note posted on the company’s website.

    “However, further pre-clinical and clinical research is required to substantiate conclusive risk reduction of these products.”

    ‘A series of lab-based biological studies were used to assess and compare the toxicological and biological effects of exposure to vapor from the hybrid iFuse, two different standard THPs, and smoke from a 3R4F reference cigarette,’ the note said. ‘The tests looked at the general health of the cells, mutations and damage to DNA, tumor promotion, oxidative stress and wound repair, all of which are involved in development of many smoking-related diseases.

    ‘Results show that cigarette smoke tested positive on all counts, whereas the hybrid and standard THPs did not cause mutations or damage to DNA, and showed considerably reduced responses in the other tests. ‘Overall, the novel hybrid tobacco heating product had the least effect, showing little to no biological activity in any of the assays in which it was tested.’

    The results are published today in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology (DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2017.05.023).

    ‘The hybrid device, iFuse, combines the workings of an e-cigarette with a pod containing tobacco,’ the note said. ‘An e-liquid is heated to produce an aerosol that passes through the tobacco pod. The aerosol cools from around 35°C to 32°C as it passes over the tobacco, heating up the pod sufficiently to extract flavor without any direct heating of the tobacco.

    ‘This device operates at a very different temperature to standard THPs: THPs generally heat tobacco to between 240°C and 350°C, whereas the hybrid product heats tobacco to around 34°C.

    ‘These temperatures are not high enough to burn the tobacco and the resulting vapors contain far fewer and lower levels of toxicants than cigarette smoke, which can reach temperatures of over 900°C during puffing (http://ow.ly/1mag30cbv3x). The vapour produced by iFuse is similar to that produced by Vype ePen.’

    BAT said that Vype ePen had been shown to have significantly reduced levels of toxicants in its vapor and that the current expert estimate was that using e-cigarettes was about 95 percent safer than was smoking cigarettes.

  • Nanoparticles lower toxicity

    Nanoparticles lower toxicity

    Chemists at the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) in Mainz, Germany, have developed a technique that reduces the toxic effects of commercially available cigarettes, according to a story at physorg.com.

    ‘Tobacco smoke contains almost 12,000 different constituents,’ the story said. ‘Among these are narcotoxic substances such as nicotine, blood toxins like cyanide and carbon monoxide, not to mention the various carcinogens. Among these are free oxygen radicals, also known as reactive oxygen species. More than 10 quadrillion (1016) of these molecules are inhaled with every puff on a cigarette.’

    The Mainz-based team headed by Professor Wolfgang Tremel said that it had discovered how to lower significantly the levels of these free oxygen radicals and thus markedly reduce the toxicity of cigarette smoke.

    Researchers took the underlying idea behind the concept from natural enzymes. In the presence of an enhanced concentration of reactive oxygen species as a result of, for instance, tobacco smoke, uncontrolled cell division and oxidative cell damage can occur. Nature regulates the concentration of radicals by means of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), which plays a central role in the prevention of pathological processes. The naturally occurring enzyme utilizes metals such as copper-zinc, nickel, iron, and manganese as reactive centers that cause oxygen radicals to decompose so that the organism is protected from their aggressive reactive behavior.

    The story said the team of chemists in Mainz had been collaborating with a group headed by Professor Jürgen Brieger of the Mainz University Medical Center to determine whether it were possible to integrate functionalized copper hydroxide nanoparticles in cigarette filters and thus reduce levels of free radicals in smoke, hence providing smokers with greater protection against their toxic potential.

    Cytotoxicity tests had shown that the cigarette smoke extracts in examined concentrations no longer had a toxic effect on human cells after passing through cigarette filters containing nanoparticles, while there had been increased toxicity in the case of controls in which untreated filters were employed.

    The researchers in Mainz had thus been able to demonstrate that imitating natural defense mechanisms with the help of nanoparticles was possible and that a reduction in the toxic effects of various types of smoke could be achieved.

    The researchers’ report was published in the scientific journal Nanoscale.

    The physorg.com story is at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-copper-hydroxide-nanoparticles-toxic-oxygen.html

  • JT playing catch up

    JT playing catch up

    Japan Tobacco Inc. plans to spend $500 million to quadruple its production capacity of smokeless-tobacco devices by the end of 2018 as it competes with Philip Morris for a bigger share of the Japanese vaping-products market, according to a story by Taiga Uranaka and Ritsuko Shimizu for Reuters.

    Nicotine-containing e-liquids are banned in Japan under the country’s pharmaceutical regulations; so PM’s heated-tobacco product, iQOS, has created strong demand, while JT’s Ploom Tech device has been beset by delays.

    JT’s CEO, Mitsuomi Koizumi, admitted that he had not foreseen the success of iQOS, which had captured about a 10 percent market share in April, up from 7.6 percent in January.

    With more people shifting to heated-tobacco products such as iQOS, JT’s domestic cigarette sales volume is likely to fall 9.6 percent this year.

    “It’s shocking,” Koizumi was quoted as saying. “I am doing this business for more than 35 years but I have never experienced losing 10 percent in volume in one year.”

    The Reuters story is at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tobacco-strategy-idUSKBN18P12F

  • Vapor trial

    Vapor trial

    Chemical analysis has revealed no detectable difference between the vapors produced by an electronic cigarette (Vype ePen) and a novel hybrid device containing tobacco (iFuse), according to a British American Tobacco press note.

    ‘Previous research revealed that the levels of nearly all tested toxicants in Vype ePen vapor are much lower than in cigarette smoke,’ the note said.

    ‘The Royal College of Physicians is among those who say that smokers should switch to e-cigarettes to reduce harm and help them quit smoking. However, some consumers say that they want more tobacco taste.’

    To remedy this, researchers at BAT have created a hybrid device, iFuse, that combines the workings of an e-cigarette with a tobacco component. This device heats tobacco rather than burns it.

    ‘An e-liquid is heated and a vapor is produced that passes through a pod containing tobacco,’ said BAT. ‘Although the tobacco is only gently heated (around 35ºC) by the vapor, this is sufficient to release the tobacco flavour. Consumer testing revealed that this produces a great tasting vapor.

    ‘Analysing the general vapor composition using non-targeted chemical screening, the scientists could find no significant difference between the vapors generated by the novel hybrid tobacco product and the tobacco-free control product (Vype ePen).’

    BAT said also that the iFuse vapor had been assessed for some known cigarette smoke toxicants and substances formed by electronic vaping products, and compared to the control Vype ePen, a reference cigarette (Kentucky 3R4F) and air blanks.

    ‘Of the 113 compounds tested, only 26 were quantified in the vapor from the hybrid tobacco product,’ the press note said. ‘The classes and levels of toxicants generated by the hybrid tobacco product were similar to those from the control e-cigarette, Vype ePen, and were 92 to >99 percent lower on a per-puff basis than those in smoke from the reference cigarette. Many of the analytes quantified in the hybrid tobacco product vapor were at levels comparable to those in air blanks.’

    Dr. James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT was quoted as saying that, overall, the novel hybrid tobacco product provided a great tobacco flavor but maintained a toxicant profile similar to that of Vype ePen with significantly lower levels of some key toxicants compared to cigarette smoke.

    The results were published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicity (DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2017.05.022)).

  • FDA starts iQOS review

    FDA starts iQOS review

    Philip Morris said yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products had initiated a substantive scientific review process in respect of its electronically heated tobacco product (EHTP), iQOS.

    On May 24, the FDA had published the executive summary and research summaries supporting PMI’s Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP) application for its EHTP, the company said in a note posted on its website.

    ‘In doing so, the agency announced that it will publish a notice in the Federal Register establishing a formal docket for public comments on PMI’s application at a later date,’ it said.

    ‘PMI submitted the application to the FDA on December 5, 2016.

    ‘Publication of PMI’s summaries initiates a substantive scientific review process by the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.’

    PMI said the FDA had made the application summaries publicly available and that the agency would publish additional modules of PMI’s MRTP application on a rolling basis.

    The FDA had established a one-year timetable for reviewing MRTP applications, though that timing was non-binding.

    “We welcome FDA and public review of the comprehensive scientific evidence package that we submitted to the agency through its MRTP application process,” said Dr. Moira Gilchrist, PMI vice president corporate affairs of reduced-risk products.

    “PMI’s application demonstrates our commitment to develop innovative, smoke-free technologies that can ultimately replace combustible cigarettes to the benefit of smokers, public health and society at large.”

    Meanwhile, the Altria Group said that it was pleased that the FDA had filed PMI’s MRTP application.

    It said that upon regulatory authorization by the FDA of PMI’s Premarket Tobacco Product application (PMTA), Philip Morris USA, an Altria company, would have an exclusive license to sell the electronically-heated tobacco product in the US.

    PMI submitted the PMTA to the agency on March 31, 2017.

    “PM USA is actively working on commercialization plans and we look forward to bringing this electronically-heated product to the US market,” said Sarah Knakmuhs, vice president heated tobacco products, PM USA.

    “We are excited about the opportunity to add this product to our portfolio for adult tobacco consumers who are looking for an alternative to conventional cigarettes.”