Tag: Featured

Stories featured at the top of tobaccoreporter.com

BAT to Fund Lexaria Bioscience Research

Photo: Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
Lexaria Bioscience Corp. has entered a research and development framework agreement with British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited (BAT) to investigate Lexaria’s technology for potential use in nicotine products.
R&D work under the agreement will be paid for by BAT.
“Lexaria is pleased to work with British American Tobacco on these research and development activities,” said Lexaria CEO Chris Bunka in a statement.
The agreement does not contemplate development of oral nicotine consumer products in North America, given Lexaria’s existing North American relationship with a leading U.S.-based tobacco company. The agreement is expected to be completed within six months, though provisions exist to extend the agreement if required.
Based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, Lexaria is a global innovator in drug delivery platforms. The company has developed and markets DehydraTECH, which allows cannabidiol and other oils to be dehydrated into an odorless, tasteless powder and mixed with xanthan gum, corn flour and other base ingredients that can then be added to foods, drinks and creams.
It also allows drugs and—in the case of CBD—vitamins to enter the bloodstream faster than existing drug delivery platforms.
September 2, 2020
Australian Cigarette Prices Hit New Records

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Australian cigarettes are 12.5 percent more expensive following a price hike on Sept. 1.

Successive tax hikes from April 2010 have made Australian cigarettes among the most expensive in the world. Following the most recent increase, a 25-stick pack of Marlboro Gold cigarettes now costs AUD48.50 ($35.63) while the average 20-pack costs around AUD35.

That means a pack-a-day smoker will spend AUD12,500 over the course of a year.

Australian tobacco taxes generate around AUS17 billion per year in tax revenue. According to Cancer Council Victoria, they also contribute to declining smoking rates.

Smoking among Australians aged 14 and over declined from 17.87 percent of the population to 13.3 percent between April 2020 and April 2017, according to the charity.

The Covid-19 crisis could drive smoking lower still. Health Minister Greg Hunt revealed that four times as many smokers have tried to quit during the pandemic amid concerns that smokers will be hit harder by the virus should they contract it.
September 2, 2020
RAI Submits Applications for Velo Pouches

Photo: RAI
Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) has submitted a group of premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking orders authorizing the marketing of Velo pouches. A grant of these marketing orders would allow these products to remain on the market after FDA review.
Velo is the group’s brand for modern oral products, designed to provide adult tobacco consumers with innovative alternatives to traditional combustible and smokeless tobacco products. A small, white pouch made with nicotine derived from tobacco but containing no tobacco leaf, Velo is placed between an adult tobacco consumer’s gum and lip. Unlike traditional dip, there is no need to spit the product and no lingering smell. The submitted group of applications includes varying nicotine strength levels and two flavors for Velo pouch products.
As with prior PMTA submissions, these commercially-proprietary applications provide the FDA with product analyses, information on human health risks, and assessments showing that these Velo pouches are appropriate for the protection of public health—including assessments on users and nonusers of tobacco products.
James Figlar (Photo: RAI)
“Velo represents an innovative space for us to identify what adult tobacco consumers want next—thus submitting the final group of Velo brand PMTAs was a great next step to help ensure adult tobacco consumers have consumer-acceptable products available that provide them with lifestyle choices and varying nicotine levels that make sense,” said James Figlar, RAI’s executive vice president and head of scientific and regulatory affairs, in a statement. “As the FDA begins evaluation of our industry’s collective PMTAs after the Sept. 9 deadline, it is critical that our chief regulatory agency continues to enforce against illegally marketed tobacco products introduced after Aug. 8, 2016.”
The PMTAs for Velo pouches are part of Reynolds’ ongoing submissions to the FDA seeking marketing orders following applications for Velo lozenges and Vuse Vibe, Ciro and Solo electronic nicotine delivery systems. The PMTA process allows the FDA to evaluate whether these products should remain on the market as part of the FDA’s public health mission. While these applications include relative risk information, the marketing orders sought make no claims of modified risk.
September 2, 2020
Cigarette Market Poised for Disruption

Photo: Cheryl Holt from Pixabay
The cigarette industry is likely to suffer disruption in 2020 with high single-digit volume declines expected and intensifying commoditization up to 2024, according to a new report.
Last year was a relatively strong year for the business. Volume decline, excluding China, of 1.9 percent was the best performance since 2016 and made 2019 the third best year in the past decade. However, 2020 is expected to be considerably worse as global cigarette sales face the impact of the coronavirus.
Average pack price growth accelerated marginally in 2019, with the global average up by 1.5 percent (versus 1.1 percent growth in 2018) to reach $2.6 ($3.30, excluding China). However, this uptick still represents the second-slowest unit price growth on record since 2008, and despite some short-term respite in 2020, year-on-year unit price expansion is expected to slow to just over 1 percent by 2024.
At 2.7 percent, cigarette value decelerated slightly in 2019, with more sluggish growth in developed markets such as Western Europe and North America balanced by quicker expansion in China, the rest of Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe. In constant terms, revenue remains challenging for the industry to deliver—particularly in the context of the disposable income pressures that will follow the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report’s authors.
Absolute volume growth of illicit volumes surged by almost 7 percent (excluding China) in 2019 to reach 400 billion sticks globally. This represents the largest single-year growth in illicit volumes in decades, even ahead of the upcoming Covid-19 effect and was driven by a significant shift in the Russian market, which accounted for 45 percent of the additional volumes.
September 2, 2020
Bhutan Suspends Tobacco Ban

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Bhutan has temporarily reversed a ban on the sale of tobacco, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
The Himalayan kingdom prohibited the sale, manufacture and distribution of tobacco more than a decade ago but allowed smokers to import controlled amounts of tobacco products after paying hefty duties and taxes.
Smoking is considered a sin in the mostly Buddhist country, where a tobacco control law was first passed in 1729 and the tobacco plant is believed to have grown from the blood of a demoness.
The tobacco ban spawned a thriving black market for cigarettes smuggled over the border from India.
When Bhutan closed its frontier with India earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, under-the-counter tobacco prices soared fourfold as the traffickers found it harder to get into the country.
To temper demand for the smuggled cigarettes and, in theory, lessen the risk of cross-border contagion, Bhutan decided to suspend its tobacco ban. The decision allows smokers to buy tobacco products from state-owned duty-free outlets for the duration of the pandemic.
Bhutan banned tobacco sales in December 2004. Soon after, Tobacco Reporter visited the Himalayan kingdom to report from the world’s first officially smoke-free nation.
September 2, 2020
Patents Granted for Sting-Free Snus

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
The U.S. Patent Office has granted Sting Free AB a patent (US 15/255,163) for a technology that makes snus and other nicotine pouch products more accessible to adult consumers by eliminating the stinging sensation associated with their use.
The European Patent Organization too intends to grant a patent covering 39 nations for the technology. Sting Free AB already holds the Swedish patent rights to this invention.
The new technology, which was first covered by Tobacco Reporter in July 2017, comprises a pouch of which one side is impermeable to liquids. In addition to eliminating the stinging sensation commonly associated with many pouch products, the technology also allows manufacturers to enhance flavors, pH levels and nicotine release profiles. Products that can benefit from its technology include snus, moist snuff, tobacco-free nicotine pouches and CBD, according to Sting Free AB.
Snus is considered less risky to health than smoking, and many tobacco users, particularly in Sweden, have used the product to reduce or eliminate their exposure to the harmful byproducts of combustion.
Grand View Research expects smokeless tobacco products to generate $5.6 billion globally in 2020 and $22.2 billion by 2025. Because the stinging sensation is often cited as the No. 1 deterrent for new users of oral nicotine products, Sting Free AB believes its new technology could expand the addressable market of adult consumers considerably.
Bengt Wiberg
“We foresee that the already impressive market growth for pouched products containing nicotine will increase substantially when more manufacturers and brands adopt our sting free technology,” says Sting Free AB CEO Bengt Wiberg.
The sting-free technology has already been successfully produced in a prototype series using unmodified industrial snus packaging machines. In 2017, the innovation received a Golden Leaf Award in the “Most exciting newcomer to the industry” category at the GTNF in New York City.
Sting Free AB has a nonexclusive licensing agreement with Swedish Match, the world’s largest Swedish snus manufacturer and producer of the successful Zyn nicotine pouch. It has also signed pre-licensing agreements with several other manufacturers of snus and nicotine pouch products.
September 1, 2020
Vaping Group Calls for Continued Pragmatism

The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) has urged British health authorities to continue their pragmatic policies on vaping.
Last month, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that Public Health England (PHE) was being scrapped and merged into the new National Institute for Health Protection. PHE has supported vaping as a vital tobacco harm reduction tool.
In the nicotine business, PHE is best known for its 2015 assertion that vaping is 95 percent less harmful than smoking.
“Whenever responsibilities are transferred there is a risk that invaluable institutional knowledge and memory is lost. This would be to the detriment of the U.K.’s millions of smokers and vapers and cannot be allowed to happen in this case,” said John Dunne, director of the UKVIA.
“The UKVIA calls upon the custodians of PHE’s former responsibilities, in the event that they are indeed reallocated, to continue their positive approach towards harm reduction technologies. Independent reviews, studies and statements, all focused on facts rather than hearsay, have been a cornerstone of a successful British vaping industry which supports adult consumers to make a positive change for their health,” Dunne said.
September 1, 2020
Tobacco-Based Covid Vaccine Passes Trials

Photo: Baiyaphytopharm
A Thai Covid-19 vaccine produced with proteins from tobacco leaves has proved successful in animal tests, reports The Bangkok Post.
Thiravat Hemachudha, head of the Thai Red Cross Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Center, said the latest vaccine had been tested on mice and monkeys with satisfactory results and will now go through a purification process before it is tested in human trials.
Developed Baiyaphytopharm, the vaccine is produced by integrating the virus’ DNA into tobacco leaves. The plant responds to the DNA and produces the desired proteins about a week later. Hemachudha said the vaccine not only produces antibodies but can also stimulate T cells to produce antibodies themselves when meeting the virus.
Bai Ya is reportedly in talks with the National Vaccine Institute (NVI) to see if it is ready to collaborate in the purification process of the vaccine candidate. If the NVI agrees to take part, the vaccine will be ready for human trials in three months.
If not, a new plant will have to be built, delaying human trials by nine months.
After human trials, the vaccine’s manufacturing at an industrial scale would take place quickly, according to Hemachudha. He added that the tobacco leaves can grow to produce more than 10 million doses of the vaccine in one month.
Philip Morris International-backed Medicago and British American Tobacco are also working on tobacco-based Covid-19 vaccines.
September 1, 2020
Indian Committee Mulls Foreign Investment

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
A parliamentary panel in India has proposed foreign direct investment (FDI) in tobacco cultivation and cigarette manufacturing for exports
Tobacco-related FDI is currently restricted in India.
Headed by V. Vijaysai Reddy, the Upper House’s standing committee on commerce recommended 100 percent FDI in tobacco cultivation on the lines of tea, coffee and rubber with the safeguard that tobacco produced with the help of foreign capital should be marketed at auction.
In case of cigarette manufacturing, the panel has backed overseas investment on the condition that it takes place only in special economic zones and that the products are sold outside of India.
Lawmakers are also mulling proposals to set up “export only” tobacco farms to generate revenue.
I
September 1, 2020
FDA to List PMTA Applicants

Mitch Zeller
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to publicly list all e-cigarette manufacturers that want permission to sell their products in the U.S., reports Bloomberg, citing a blog post published on Monday by Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.
The move could help consumers and retailers spot illegal products.
Vapor product manufacturers who want to keep their products on the U.S. market will have to file requests for marketing authorization with the FDA by Sept. 9.
The FDA has received applications for about 2,000 e-cigarettes and other newly regulated tobacco products already. There are more than 400 million eligible items that would need to apply to stay on the market, according to Zeller.
Products whose applications were filed on time will have a one-year grace period to stay on the market while the FDA reviews them, unless the agency rejects the request. Large manufacturers, retailers who could be liable for selling illegal products and public-health groups had pushed the FDA to make the process more transparent.
In a letter to the FDA, several retail associations had asked the agency to release a list of manufacturers that have PMTAs on file so retailers can know what electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) brands can remain on store shelves.

September 1, 2020