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Tag: British American Tobacco

  • BAT to Upgrade Kanfanar Factory

    BAT to Upgrade Kanfanar Factory

    Photo: burnel11

    British American Tobacco is investing more than €80 million ($87 million) to upgrade its cigarette factory in Kanfanar, Croatia, to make new categories of tobacco products, reports SeeNews, citing Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic.

    BAT acquired the cigarette factory on the Istria peninsula in 2015 when it took over Tvornica Duhana Rovinj for more than €500 million. Under the deal, BAT was obliged to maintain production at the factory in Kanfanar for at least five years.

    In September 2020, Plenkovic said the government was in talks with BAT on the company’s plans to relocate production from the factory to another country, following media reports that BAT might leave due to worsened business conditions in Croatia.

    In May 2021, BAT said it would start producing heated tobacco products in Kanfanar.

  • BAT invests in Bangladesh

    BAT invests in Bangladesh

    Photo: Piotr Pawinski

    British American Tobacco will invest BDT5.74 billion ($66.55 million) in its Savar, Bangladesh, operations to cater to export opportunities and create contingency capacity, reports The Daily Star.

    The announcement follows a BDT5.14 billion investment in 2021 to increase the facility’s production capacity.

    “With an eye on future exports, the board has approved an investment of about Tk 574 crore to further expand the Savar factory’s production capacity,” said Sheikh Shabab Ahmed, head of external affairs at BATBC.

    “We believe with the improved capacity we will be equipped for any future demand,” he added.

    In 2021, the company’s net turnover rose 24 percent to BDT74.87 billion, up from BDT60.29 billion the previous year, according to its annual report. In the same period, BAT Bangladesh logged profits of BDT14.96 billion, up 37.5 percent over that posted in 2020.

    BATBC has cigarette factories in Dhaka and Savar, a green leaf threshing plant in Kushtia, a green leaf re-drying plant in Manikganj, and a number of leaf and sales offices throughout the country.

  • The Virtuous Weed

    The Virtuous Weed

    Artwork: Dan Kurtz

    When tobacco heals instead of hurts

    By Taco Tuinstra

    The health consequences of tobacco use have been well documented. According to the World Health Organization, more than 8 million people worldwide succumb to tobacco-related illnesses, such as lung cancer, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, every year. For every person who dies due to tobacco, at least 30 people live with a serious tobacco-related illness, according to a 2019 policy brief by Tobacconomics.

    Tobacco also carries a significant economic toll. A report prepared by the World Bank Group Global Tobacco Program expected the worldwide economic cost of smoking to reach $1.4 trillion in 2017, equivalent to 1.8 percent of the world’s gross domestic product that year. Little wonder, then, that many view the tobacco plant as evil.

    Yet there is another, decidedly more benign, side to the Wicked Weed. When dried, set on fire and inhaled, the tobacco plant wreaks havoc; when deployed as a “green bioreactor,” the golden leaf has the potential to help address some of the world’s most vexing public health challenges, including, ironically, certain respiratory afflictions.

    Baiya Phytopharm is currently developing a new generation of its vaccine for the omicron variant of Covid-19 and expects to conduct Phase 1 trials in April 2022.
    (Photo: Baiya Phytopharm).

    Among the most striking examples of tobacco’s potential to heal rather than hurt are recent endeavors to develop an inoculation against the novel coronavirus. In February, Health Canada approved Covifenz, a tobacco plant-based Covid-19 vaccination developed by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company backed by Philip Morris International. According to Health Canada, Covifenz is the world’s first vaccine approved for human use that utilizes a plant-based protein technology.

    As it turns out, plants—and especially tobacco plants (see sidebar)—lend themselves exceptionally well to developing pharmaceutical compounds. In many ways, they are better suited to the task than the man-made bioreactors used in traditional vaccine development.

    To create a vaccine, scientists must produce antigens—molecules that trigger an immune response to a specific virus or bacteria. Antigens for conventional vaccines are made by infecting cells from insects, monkeys, hamsters or other sources in the laboratory with a virus or a bit of viral genetic code that tricks the cells into making copies of the virus or antigen. The cells incubate in bioreactors for extended periods of time and then undergo a complex purification process before being packaged into vials.

    Bioreactors are expensive, however, and their operation requires trained personnel. They are also susceptible to contamination, forcing vaccine developers to keep bioreactors growing different types of antigens far apart and under sterile conditions.

    Dahlia Garwe

    Plants are natural bioreactors, according to Dahlia Garwe, the former CEO of the Kutsaga Tobacco Research Station in Zimbabwe. “They are able to perform eukaryotic post-translational modifications that are often essential for biological activity of many mammalian proteins,” she explains. When infected with DNA from Covid-19 or other viruses, plant cells will make millions of copies of virus-like particles that can serve as antigens without being infectious.

    Using plants instead of mechanical bioreactors offers many benefits, notes Garwe. Plants are cheap to grow, easy to manipulate and resistant to contaminations that could present problems for humans. “Green bioreactors do not suffer the same risk of pathogen contamination as seen in mammalian cell culture as there are no known cross-kingdom pathogens,” she says.

    With light as their primary energy source, plants are less expensive to work with than traditional cell culture systems, allowing for inexpensive and nearly unlimited scalability. Because plant systems are robust and inert, they are also easier to handle and purify than other systems.

    Medicago is not the only company that has grasped the promise of plants in the development of vaccines and therapeutics. At least three other organizations are using Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of the tobacco plant used in cigarettes, to develop Covid-19 vaccines. In December 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an investigational new drug application for a Covid-19 vaccine by BAT subsidiary Kentucky Bioprocessing (KBP, now part of KBio). The company is currently conducting Phase I clinical trials, which are the first steps in testing the safety and side effects of a pharmaceutical in humans.

    According to BAT, plant-based vaccines have several advantages over serums developed with conventional technologies, including speed and thermostability. Whereas traditional methods can take months to yield the desired vaccine ingredients, KBP’s tobacco plants do so within six weeks. And unlike some of the existing Covid-19 vaccines, KBP’s vaccine candidate has the potential to be stable at room temperature, an important benefit, especially for public health networks in countries with warm climates and few refrigerated trucks and warehouses.

    Fearing supply constraints and “vaccine nationalism” at the start of the pandemic, scientists in Thailand have joined the race as well. Baiya Phytopharm, a plant-produced biologics company, is working with tobacco in part because that crop can be easily and inexpensively cultivated domestically, thus reducing Thailand’s reliance on foreign-made vaccines. According to the Bangkok Post, Thailand has more than 10,000 tobacco growers.

    Waranyoo Phoolcharoen

    In an email exchange, Baiya Phytopharm co-founder Waranyoo Phoolcharoen told Tobacco Reporter that the company had finished Phase 1 clinical trials and was happy with the data. Baiya Phytopharm is currently developing a new generation of its vaccine for the omicron variant of Covid-19 and expects to conduct Phase 1 trials this month (April). If the vaccine candidate does well in subsequent trials, it could be available in Thailand by the end of the year, according to Phoolcharoen.

    Meanwhile, Akdeniz University in Turkey is using a protein produced by tobacco plants to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. Its technology is based on an angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and can be administered as an injection or through a spray. According to an April 2021 report in Hurriyet Daily News, tests on mice have demonstrated a high level of inhibition of the Covid-19 virus from entering the cell. At the time of publication, Akdeniz University was seeking funding to conduct clinical trials in humans.

    In addition to Covid-19, scientists have sought to tackle many other diseases with the help of tobacco. In response to concerns about bioterrorism following the September 11 attacks in the United States, researchers at the University of Central Florida used tobacco plants to create a protective antigen against anthrax. According to an article published in Environmental Health Perspectives, mice immunized with the agent survived anthrax injections of 1.5 times the deadly dose.

    In 2014, KBP, working in cooperation with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, developed, tested and used ZMapp, an antibody cocktail to treat infection from the Ebola virus, which was raging in west Africa at the time. In under six weeks, KBP completed cGMP manufacturing of each of the three monoclonal antibodies comprising the ZMapp cocktail, which received temporary emergency authorization from the FDA.

    Pushing the envelope further still, Collplant of Israel is using tobacco to generate human tissue and organs. Collplant’s technology allows for the production of large quantities of medical grade human collagen, which is a primary building block for the human body and essential for tissue repair. Physicians use collagen products to treat chronic wounds, burns and other afflictions. Deriving collagen from tobacco rather than from traditional sources, such as cadavers, cows or pigs, offers several advantages, including stable fibrillates, pure molecular structures and no immunogenic responses, according to Collplant.

    While the endeavors described above are only a sample of the many ways in which tobacco is deployed to produce pharmaceutical and other useful compounds, they vividly illustrate the potential of the golden leaf to help solve rather than create problems—a side that is often overlooked due to the health toll extracted by smoking.

    The Green Bioreactor

    While despised in the court of public opinion, tobacco is highly valued among plant scientists.

    For starters, the species has good physiology for research. “Seeds are easily sterilized, and germination is very quick, so generating experimental material is easy,” says David Norman, senior scientist at Demeetra AgBio, a company that is using gene editing for crop trait development and that also works with tobacco (see “Genetic Scissors,” Tobacco Reporter, August 2021). “Tobacco grows fairly fast compared to many plants, to where flowering and mature seeds can be attained in just a couple months.”

    The soft tobacco leaf is ideal for transfection, allowing researchers to easily introduce DNA or RNA into its cells. What’s more, regeneration mechanisms from callus in tobacco are extremely efficient. In addition to allowing genetic modifications on leaf material, tobacco is also easily propagated as a cell culture or protoplast culture. 

    The fact that tobacco is neither a food nor a feed crop makes it even more attractive as a plant for conducting research, according to Dahlia Garwe, the former CEO of the Kutsaga Tobacco Research Station in Zimbabwe. Using tobacco, she says, reduces the likelihood of transgenic material contaminating food or feed supply chains—an important consideration when many consumers remain wary of genetically manipulated foods.

    Tobacco is also well understood from a genetic engineering and molecular biology standpoint; it has been more characterized than any other plant system. Scientists have been researching and genetically modifying tobacco since the early 20th century.

    Meanwhile, biochemists have been able to produce many recombinant proteins in tobacco, with the plants serving as bioreactors for largescale production of pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. “Tobacco can easily take in DNA to produce these compounds when injected into the leaf or through vacuum infiltration of whole plants,” says Norman.

    The vacuum infiltration method, in particular, can be scaled up to infect many plants at one time, according to Norman. “After infiltration, tobacco transiently expresses the DNA introduced for a short while and makes the protein of interest in the leaves.

    “While the protein production in plants may not be that impressive on a per plant scale, up to a few percent depending on the protein of interest, you have to consider the yield per acre for tobacco. On an average acre of tobacco, the yield can be several tons of leaf material. With that scale of leaf material per acre, suddenly those small protein yields add up to being significant and potentially economically viable.”–T.T.

    The Plant-Based Vaccine: A Late Bloomer?

    In February, Medicago’s Covifenz Covid-19 vaccine received the green light from Health Canada, making it the world’s first plant-based vaccine approved for human use. Considering how long scientists have known about the potential of plant-based vaccines—the proof of concept dates back some 30 years—it may seem surprising that the first regulatory approval for such a product was granted only this year.

    While the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2006 gave the thumbs-up to a plant-derived vaccine to inoculate chickens against the lethal Newcastle disease, most of the projects targeted at human vaccines never even made it to end-stage clinical trials. The FDA did approve Protalix’s plant-based drug to treat Gaucher’s disease in humans in 2012 and in 2014 gave emergency authorization to ZMapp, a plant-based biological medicine manufactured by KBP (now part of KBio) to treat Ebola, but the first was not a vaccine, and the second was approved under special conditions.

    Dahlia Garwe, the former CEO of the Kutsaga Tobacco Research Board in Zimbabwe, suspects the “delay” in approving plant-based vaccines is due to regulatory issues and public perceptions of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). “Most vaccines produced in plants would most likely be classified as GMOs, which automatically makes them ‘undesirables,’” she ventures.

    Kathleen Hefferon, who teaches microbiology at Cornell University, acknowledges that public perception may be part of the problem but believes that many consumers would accept plant-made vaccines just as they have accepted vaccines produced in eggs and mammalian cells. “They are familiar with the GM technology when used for medical purposes,” she says. “It is when it comes to genetic modification in food products that some people seem to raise concerns.”

    Hefferon suspects that the absence of a clear regulatory path represents the greatest obstacle as it may have made pharmaceutical companies wary of investing in this technology. The carrot suspension cell culture that Protalix used for its Gaucher’s disease drug somewhat resembles Chinese hamster ovary cell culture, she notes. “That made it a little easier for regulators.”

    Patrick Doyle, CEO of KBio Holdings, a company set up by BAT to accelerate the development and production of novel treatments with plant-based technology, says it is important to remember that in a normal R&D cycle, medicines and vaccines on average take over 10 years, even when using a proven technology or approach.

    “In fact, as a result of the global health crisis presented by Covid[-19], development, regulatory review and approval timelines were accelerated to support the delivery of much-needed vaccines,” he says. “Before gaining approval for any vaccine, manufacturers must generate sufficient data to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the candidate and technology, which takes time. For example, the mRNA platform, first discovered in the early 1960s, was a genetic technology that had long held huge promise but only received the first FDA [Food and Drug Administration] emergency use authorization for the prevention of Covid-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older on  Dec. 20.”

    According to Doyle, the positive data generated and the subsequent approval of Medicago’s vaccine is both a positive in terms of creating another approved treatment option for Covid-19 and reinforcing the potential of plant-based vaccines.

    Hefferon agrees that Medicago’s success could set the stage for plant-made pharmaceutical commercialization in future years, and her optimism appears to be shared by others. Research and Markets expects the value of the global plant-based vaccines market to reach $2.62 billion by 2028—more than double the 2021 figure. Tobacco companies seem well attuned to the potential as evidenced by PMI’s investment in Medicago and by BAT’s creation of KBio. Doyle says KBio will explore new opportunities to develop its plant-based production system, which has the potential to offer greater speed, thermostability and scale-up opportunity and.

    Hefferon says she’s very happy about the growing momentum for plant-based vaccines. “Too bad it took a pandemic to make it happen.” –T.T.

    Uphill Battle: Tobacco-Backed Vaccines Continue To Face Skepticism From Health Authorities

    While tobacco plants lend themselves exceptionally well to the creation of pharmaceutical compounds, vaccinations and treatments developed by tobacco-backed organizations still face an uphill battle as demonstrated by recent World Health Organization actions.

    During a March 16 media briefing, the WHO’s assistant director-general for drug access, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, Mariangela Simao, said the global health body had paused the process for pre-qualification of Medicago’s new Covifenz Covid-19 shot due to the biopharmaceutical firm’s link to Philip Morris International, which owns about one-third of the Canadian company.

    “The WHO and the U.N. have a very strict policy regarding engagement with the tobacco and arms [industries], so it’s very likely it won’t be accepted for emergency use listing,” said Simao. The WHO persists in its opposition despite Health Canada’s February approval of Covifenz for adults between the ages of 18 and 64.

    In a statement published by the CBC, Medicago said it believes authorization decisions should be based on the quality, efficiency and safety of the vaccine, not who owns shares in the manufacturer.

    “It is our understanding that the WHO has made a decision to pause the approval of the vaccine and that this decision is related to Medicago’s minority shareholder and not to the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, which was demonstrated with the approval by Health Canada,” the statement reads.

    Derek Yach, a global health consultant, was aghast by the WHO’s suggestion that it might reject Medicago’s vaccine based on the company’s relationship with PMI.

    “‘Pikuach nefesh’ is the ethical principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule,” he said. “Most other religions support a variant of this. WHO violates this ethical principle when it denies people access to a lifesaving vaccine.”

    If the WHO follows through, the vaccine would be the first Western-manufactured Covid-19 shot to be rejected by the global health body, according to Bloomberg. —T.T.

    Taco Tuinstra is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial director. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, he coordinates the work of staff writers and contributors. On his watch, Tobacco Reporter has won several awards for editorial excellence. Since joining the magazine in 1997, Taco has visited more than 75 countries to meet industry representatives in their markets and to report tobacco news firsthand.
  • BAT in Talks to Transfer Russian Business

    BAT in Talks to Transfer Russian Business

    Photo: scaliger

    BAT is in advanced talks to transfer its Russian business to Russia’s SNS Group of Companies after Moscow suggested it could nationalize assets of foreign firms that left the country, reports Reuters.

    BAT controls just under 25 percent of the Russian tobacco market.

    “The process of transferring the management of BAT business in Russia to SNS GC is well underway at remarkable speed,” said an SNS spokesperson.

    BAT declined to comment but said last week that it was looking for parties interested in the transfer of the Russian business. Kingsley Wheaton, BAT’s chief marketing officer, stated that BAT’s distributor could be interested in a transfer, adding that exiting the business or stopping sales or manufacturing would be seen as a criminal bankruptcy by Russia and BAT would face legal consequences.

    The level of production and the supply and distribution chain will be maintained with a transfer, according to the SNS spokesperson. Whether BAT will pull out completely or continue to supply SNS with raw materials or manufacturing support is unclear.

  • Bat Appoints New Digital and Information Director

    Bat Appoints New Digital and Information Director

    Photo: BAT

    Marina Bellini, director of digital and information, will step down from the management board on March 31, 2022, and will leave BAT on July 31, 2022, to pursue new opportunities.

    Javed Iqbal, currently area director of Middle East South Asia, will succeed Bellini as director of digital and information and will be appointed to the management board effective April 1, 2022.

    “I would like to thank Marina for the significant contribution she has made to our digital and information function,” said BAT CEO Jack Bowles in a statement. “She has been key in supporting the group’s transformation by unlocking commercial value across the global organization and connecting information and data to create a digitally agile business.

    “Marina has also successfully established a strong pipeline of digital expertise through talent development and embedding digital as a key enabler for our ‘A Better Tomorrow’ strategy.

    “I am delighted to welcome Javed to the management board. As BAT enters a phase of accelerated delivery, he is very well positioned to lead the digital and information function. He has extensive experience in leading strategic change across multiple geographies, including systems and process transformation.

    “His finance and technology background and extensive commercial knowledge, supported by his appetite for change and capacity to build high-performing teams, will ensure the next chapter of our digital journey is in safe hands. I would like to wish him the very best in his new role.”

     

  • BAT Withdraws from Russia

    BAT Withdraws from Russia

    Photo: Anton Gvozdikov

    BAT is withdrawing from Russia, the company announced on its website.

    “Building on our announcement of 9th March 2022, we have now completed the review of our presence in Russia. The context is highly complex, exceptionally fast-moving and volatile,” the company said in a statement, referring to the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

    “We have concluded that BAT’s ownership of the business in Russia is no longer sustainable in the current environment,” the company wrote.

    “Today, we have initiated the process to rapidly transfer our Russian business in full compliance with international and local laws. Beyond continuing to pay our 2,500 employees, we will do our utmost to safeguard their future employment.

    “Upon completion, BAT will no longer have a presence in Russia.

    “Following our decision today, and in light of the continuing uncertainty related to Ukraine and Russia and the possible indirect impact on the rest of the group, we consider it prudent to revise our guidance for full-year 2022. We now expect constant currency group revenue growth of 2 percent to 4 percent and mid-single figure constant currency adjusted diluted EPS [earnings per share] growth. In 2021, Ukraine and Russia accounted for 3 percent of group revenue and a slightly lower proportion of adjusted profit from operations.”

    BAT faced heavy criticism for an earlier decision to continue operating in Russia. “If you are a member of the board of British American Tobacco, courting popularity was probably never a top personal priority. Even so, the people overseeing a large and widely held FTSE-100 company might still feel obliged to explain why, amid the broad boycott of Russia by multinationals, they think its fine to carry on business in the country roughly as normal,” wrote Nils Pratley in The Guardian.

    Earlier, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Brands announced the suspension of their operations in Russia.

  • Firms Scale Back in Russia and Ukraine

    Firms Scale Back in Russia and Ukraine

    Photo: BAT

    The leading tobacco companies are adjusting their strategies in Russia and Ukraine following the war between those countries.

    Philip Morris International announced the suspension of its planned investments in the Russian Federation, including all new product launches and commercial, innovation and manufacturing investment. PMI has also activated plans to scale down its manufacturing operations amid ongoing supply chain disruptions and the evolving regulatory environment.

    “We have watched with shock the war in Ukraine and condemn the violence in the strongest possible terms. We stand in solidarity with the innocent men, women and children who are suffering,” said PMI CEO Jacek Olczak in a statement. “We join the many voices calling for an immediate end to the war and the restoration of peace.”

    Olczak said PMI had helped evacuate more than 800 people from the most impacted areas; provided critical aid to employees who remain in Ukraine; and provided those who have left the country with logistical, medical, financial and other practical support in neighboring countries. PMI is continuing to pay salaries to all its Ukrainian employees during this period, the company said.

    Ukraine accounted for around 2 percent of PMI’s total cigarette and heated-tobacco unit shipment volume and under 2 percent of PMI’s total net revenues in 2021. The company has one factory and approximately 1,300 employees in the country.

    In 2021, Russia accounted for almost 10 percent of PMI’s total cigarette and heated-tobacco unit shipment volume and around 6 percent of PMI’s total net revenues. The company employs more than 3,200 people in the country.

    BAT, which employs more than 1,000 people in Ukraine and around 2,500 people in Russia, said it had suspended all business and manufacturing operations in Ukraine and suspended all planned capital investment into Russia.

    “In Ukraine, we have suspended all business and manufacturing operations and are providing all the support and assistance we can to our colleagues, including relocation and temporary accommodation. Our businesses bordering Ukraine are providing assistance to the humanitarian relief effort,” the company wrote on its website.

    “In Russia, we have a full establishment of our people right across the country, including substantial local manufacturing. Our business in Russia continues to operate. As a key principle, we have a duty of care to all our employees at this extremely complicated and uncertain time for them and their families.”

    Japan Tobacco International, which has four factories and nearly 4,000 employees in Russia, announced the suspension of all new investments and marketing activities as well as the planned launch of its Ploom X heated-tobacco product in Russia, citing the unprecedented challenges of operating in Russia at this time. “Unless the operating environment and geopolitical situation improve significantly, JTI cannot exclude the possibility of a suspension of its manufacturing operations in the country,” the company wrote in a press statement.

    Imperial Brands also suspended all operations in Russia, halting production at its factory in Volgograd and ceasing all sales and marketing activity.

    “We have already suspended our operations in Ukraine in order to prioritize the safety and well-being of our 600 employees in that country,” the company wrote in a statement.

    Russia and Ukraine are relatively small markets for Imperial Brands, representing around 2 percent of net revenues and 0.5 percent of adjusted operating profit in 2021.

  • BAT Prevails in Tanzania Distributor Dispute

    BAT Prevails in Tanzania Distributor Dispute

    Photo: somemeans

    British American Tobacco Kenya has prevailed in an eight-year legal battle against a distributor in Tanzania, sparing it from paying a TZS3.2 billion ($1.4 million) court award, reports The East African.

    The Tanzania Court of Appeal annulled a 2016 decision by a lower court awarding the money to Mohans Oysterbay Drinks as damages after it sued BAT Kenya over the termination of a cigarette supply contract.

    Mohans claimed it had the exclusive rights to sell BAT products in Tanzania, which the cigarette maker disputed.

    “In our view, there was no evidence to prove the existence of a distributorship agreement between the parties nor its breach,” said the appellant court.

    Mohans started importing and supplying BAT cigarettes in Tanzania in 2000. However, in 2014, BAT awarded an exclusive distribution contract to another firm after a review of the cigarette maker’s business model.

    Mohans challenged the decision in Tanzania’s high court, saying that BAT had unlawfully terminated a contract. BAT said there was no such contract.

    In September 2016, the high court held that an implied contract between the parties existed in their 14 years of engagement and awarded Mohans damages for loss of goodwill and money invested in the business.

    In overturning that ruling, the Court of Appeal ruled that the parties’ business relationship was “neither express nor implied agreement.”

    Further, the judges said the high court had erred in its decision given that Mohans had rebuffed an attempt by BAT to formalize the distributorship agreement.

  • BAT Appoints Chief Medical Officer

    BAT Appoints Chief Medical Officer

    Senthil Vel

    BAT has appointed Senthil Vel as its new chief medical officer.

    Vel will play a central role in the research and development programs that support the company’s commitment to reducing the health impact of its business by offering consumers a range of alternative reduced risk tobacco and nicotine products.

    Based at the BAT’s research & development hub in Southampton, Vel will be responsible for overall medical governance, ensuring robust medical processes and best practice are applied to all aspects of BAT’s work. He will help deliver robust evidence-generation programs designed to provide further scientific evidence that supports BAT’s new categories products.

    “Sen is a highly experienced, much admired physician, with a proven track record of positively impacting national and global health policy, making him a natural addition to our leadership team,” said David O’Reilly, director, scientific research at BAT, in a statement.

    Vel has more than two decades of international medical, pharmaceutical and device experience. Most recently, he served as chief medical officer of Bio Products Laboratory. He has led large medical teams across EMEA, APAC, and the US, working for large and mid-sized pharmaceutical and medical device companies, including Boston Scientific and Novo Nordisk, in clinical research, regulatory, safety, and medical affairs.

    His experience includes designing non-clinical and clinical strategies to meet the regulatory requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency, the U.K. Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, and other major agencies worldwide. He has extensive experience in non-clinical and Phase I to Phase IV clinical studies including health outcomes programs for pharmaceuticals and devices. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Physicians, the medical body for advancing the science and practice of pharmaceutical medicine for the benefit of the public.

    Vel qualified in medicine and trained in surgery under the Royal College of Surgeons of England and holds specialist registration in pharmaceutical medicine. He holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.

  • BAT Announces Preliminary Results

    BAT Announces Preliminary Results

    Photo: BAT

    British American Tobacco reported revenue of £25.68 billion ($34.87 billion) in 2021, down 0.4 percent from 2020. Revenue from “New Categories” jumped 42.4 percent to £2.05 billion. On an adjusted basis, revenues increased 6.9 percent while revenues from new categories were up by 50.9 percent. Profit from operations was up 2.7 percent to £10.23 billion or £11.15 billion (up 5.2 percent) on an adjusted basis.

    BAT CEO Jack Bowles described 2021 as a “pivotal year.” “We accelerated New Category revenue, with growth of over 50 percent and reached a total of 18.3 million consumers–up 4.8 million—of our non-combustible products,” he said in a statement.

    “Putting ESG at the heart of our strategy and corporate purpose is delivering sustainable growth, encouraging more consumers to transition to reduced risk products and reducing the health impact of our business. We are also on track to achieve our other ESG targets, including carbon neutrality from our operations by 2030.”

    The company is on track to deliver £5 billion of revenue from New Categories by 2025, said Bowles, adding that BAT is also developing opportunities beyond nicotine.

    Alongside its 2021 preliminary results, BAT also announced a program to buy back up to £2 billion of ordinary shares. The company said it may purchase up to 229,400,000 shares between Feb. 14 and Dec. 21, 2022.