Philip Morris International (PMI) will participate in several global forums focused on equality in the workplace. Starting today, members of PMI’s senior management team—including Chief Diversity Officer Silke Muenster—will detail the steps PMI is taking to further diversify its workplace and explain how fostering a culture built on broader perspectives increases creativity and productivity, ultimately driving innovation and consumer-centricity.
Forums include The Hill’s “Century of the Woman,” Financial Times LIVE’s “Accelerating Equality,” Financial Times LIVE’s “Women at the Top U.K.,” Women in Technology World Series, and Financial Times LIVE’s “Women at the Top USA.”
Tag: Philip Morris International
PMI to Present During General Assembly
Philip Morris International (PMI) CEO Andre Calantzopoulos and Chief Operating Officer Jacek Olczak will discuss the role of science in driving innovation, progress and policy in a series of events over the course of the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Events will take place between Sept. 21 and Oct. 1 and can be found on the PMI’s website.
The speeches and panel participation follow the launch of PMI’s latest white paper, “In Support of the Primacy of Science,” presenting findings from an independent survey, conducted by Povaddo for PMI, of more than 19,000 adults across 19 countries and territories.
The results show that citizens around the world want governments, public authorities and private businesses to prioritize science and facts when tackling critical global issues.
PMI: Public Wants Science-Based Policies
Citizens around the world want governments, public authorities and private businesses to prioritize science and facts when tackling critical issues, according to a white paper prepared by Philip Morris International (PMI) with research from Provaddo.
“Science can help make significant strides in our collective efforts to address the world’s most pressing problems” said Moira Gilchrist, vice president for strategic and scientific communications at PMI.
“Unfortunately, governments and broader society have yet to embrace science at its fullest potential as this global survey shows. Ensuring facts and evidence are given greater prominence in policymaking—over ideology, politics and unsubstantiated beliefs—will help match the public’s expectations for science to sit at the heart of decisions impacting them and their future.”
Science is crucial to PMI’s ambition to deliver a smoke-free future. “With the right regulatory encouragement and support from civil society, we believe this goal can be achieved in many countries in 10 [years] to 15 years,” the company wrote in a statement.
PMI Names New Senior Vice President External Affairs
Philip Morris International (PMI) has appointed Gregoire Verdeaux as senior vice president of external affairs effective Sept. 1, 2020. Verdeaux will report to the company’s CEO, Andre Calantzopoulos.
“Gregoire’s range of experiences—from working for national and EU parliaments and governments, the UN, WHO [World Health Organization] as well as private companies undergoing significant transformation—has given him a unique understanding of how political decisions are made,” said Calantzopoulos. “This makes him an ideal candidate to join us at PMI and help adapt the regulatory environment applicable to reduced-risk products as we continue our transformation to a smoke-free company.”
Verdeaux joins PMI from Hering Schuppener where he was a partner. Prior to that, he served as group international policy director at Vodafone. Prior to Vodafone, he served as European policy director at Electricite De France. He also served at the local level as deputy head of the cabinet of the French president, as administrator to the French senate and cabinet adviser to the minister of foreign affairs and to the European Commission. Additionally, he held the positions of director of strategy and finance at Unitaid for the WHO and manager in the United Nations Development Program.
Verdeaux holds degrees from Universite D’Auvergne, the University of Oklahoma and Sciences Po.
His appointment follows the previous announcement of long-serving executive Marc Firestone’s intention to retire from the dual roles of president of external affairs and general counsel and the appointment of Suzanne Rich Folsom as senior vice president and general counsel.
Australia Rejects Tobacco Heating Products
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia rejected an application from Philip Morris (PM) that would have allowed the sale of heated-tobacco products.
This follows the Australian government’s ban on the import of nicotine-based e-cigarettes. Health Minister Greg Hunt planned to implement the ban beginning July 1 of this year, but the ban has now been pushed back to the beginning of 2021 to allow those who have been using e-cigarettes with nicotine to quit smoking combustibles to get prescriptions and end their addiction.
The ban would make the import of vaporizer nicotine and e-cigarettes allowable only with a doctor’s prescription.
There were 82 submissions in the TGA decision that supported heated-tobacco products, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded that PM’s tobacco-heating product “is expected to benefit the health of the population as a whole.” The TGA received submissions from the Lung Foundation, Cancer Council Australia, Australian Council on Health and Smoking, and the National Heart Foundation, though, that stated their concerns regarding public health risks of heated-tobacco products. The TGA ultimately decided there were “significant safety concerns with heated-tobacco products,” according to news.com.au.
“Study after study shows that scientifically substantiated smoke-free products that do not generate smoke, while not risk-free, are a much better alternative for adult smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke cigarettes,” said Tammy Chan, Philip Morris managing director. “It’s time Australian authorities recognize that many adult smokers will continue to smoke cigarettes—the most harmful way of consuming nicotine—unless the government rethinks its tobacco control policy. Smoke-free products can play a role in reducing smoking rates.”
According to Chan, Australia’s stance on smoke-free products is at odds with other countries; heated-tobacco products are available in 50 other countries.PMI Quarterly Results ‘Above Expectations’
Philip Morris International (PMI) has released its second-quarter results and reinstated its 2020 forecast.
Diluted earnings per share were down by 16.1 percent, and net revenues were down by 13.6 percent. Operating income was down by 14.3 percent.
Market share for heated-tobacco units in IQOS markets rose by 1.8 points to 6.3 percent.
“Despite a very challenging quarter due to the pandemic, we delivered results above our previously communicated expectations for both net revenues and reported diluted EPS,” said Andre Calantzopoulos, PMI’s chief executive officer.
“This primarily reflected favorable sequential performance in June, with a strong industry volume recovery—notably in the higher margin EU region—and substantial IQOS user acquisition growth as well as the benefit of certain nonunderlying factors, some of which we expect to reverse in the third quarter.”
PMI reinstated its 2020 full-year forecast after withdrawing it in April due to uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. The “forecast represents a projected increase of approximately 2 percent to 5 percent versus pro forma adjusted diluted earnings per share of $5.13 in 2019,” according to PMI.PMI Campaigns Against Cigarette Litter
Philip Morris International (PMI) launched “Our World is Not an Ashtray,” a new global initiative to raise awareness and drive a long-term change in behavior and attitudes around cigarette-butt littering.
The initiative supports PMI’s litter reduction target to achieve a 50 percent reduction of the plastic litter from its products by 2025 (vs. 2021 baseline). The initiative, launched on WorldNoAshtray.com, aims to educate the public about the environmental impact of cigarette-butt littering and inspire adult smokers to change littering habits.
“We seek to make cigarette-butt littering socially unacceptable,” said Huub Savelkouls, chief sustainability officer at PMI. “‘Our World is Not an Ashtray’ is an important initiative in our multipronged approach to addressing this important issue.”
To track progress against its goal, PMI is working with three organizations—Litterati, Cortexia, and CARTO—to implement a data-driven approach and assess the prevalence of cigarette-butt litter across the globe; identify litter hotspots; and monitor the impact of anti-littering activities. A pilot assessment will take place this summer in a pilot city before being rolled out in representative countries across the world in 2021 as part of a five-year assessment.Medicago Starts Human Trials of Covid Vaccine
Medicago, a Quebec-based biotechnology company backed by Philip Morris International as well as other large investors, has begun human testing for its Covid-19 vaccine, reports Bloomberg.
The vaccine is derived from the plant nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative to tobacco, to provoke an immune response to the virus.
Medicago’s human trials will involve 180 patients ages 18 to 55. It will test various doses of the vaccine, both alone and combined with two adjuvants—one from GlaxoSmithKline and another from Dynavax Technologies.
If the trial is successful, Medicago plans to start late-stage trials in October and manufacture 100 million doses by the end of next year.
Progress Toward Smoke-Free Objective
Philip Morris International today published its first integrated report, a comprehensive overview of the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and its progress toward delivering a smoke-free future—including the company’s ambition to switch more than 40 million adult smokers to its smoke-free products by 2025, with half of the total to come from non-OECD countries.
“Since we announced our smoke-free commitment in 2016, we have made enormous progress in terms of organizational capabilities, the integration of sustainability into every aspect of our transformation, and our business,” said Andre Calantzopoulos, CEO of PMI.
Among other things, the integrated report shows that PMI directed 98 percent of total R&D expenditure and 71 percent of total commercial expenditure toward smoke-free products in 2019.
PMI’s smoke-free product net revenues reached 18.7 percent of total net revenues in 2019 compared to 2.7 percent in 2016. In 2019, net revenues from smoke-free products exceeded 50 percent of total net revenues in four markets.
PMI’s smoke-free product shipment volume increased to approximately 60 billion units in 2019, up from 7.7 billion in 2016. The company’s combustible product shipment volume in 2019 declined to 732 billion units, down from 845 billion in 2016, partly reflecting the impact of adult smokers switching to PMI’s smoke-free products.
Since announcing its smoke-free vision in 2016, PMI has delisted more than 600 cigarette stock-keeping units (SKUs) globally while broadening its portfolio of heated-tobacco units to more than 400 SKUs.
At year-end 2019, there were an estimated 9.7 million users worldwide who have stopped smoking and switched to PMI’s heat-not-burn smoke-free product IQOS compared to 6.6 million in 2018, according to the report.
On the ESG front, the integrated report highlights PMI’s youth access-prevention programs, initiatives to mitigate environmental risks and impacts across its value chain and efforts to improve the wellbeing of is farming community.
“Our integrated report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of what PMI is about combined with a holistic set of metrics that go beyond our financial disclosures, covering our business transformation as well as environmental, social and governance topics,” said Huub Savelkouls, chief sustainability officer at PMI.PMI Countersues RJR For Patent Infringement
Philip Morris International (PMI) filed counterclaims against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) for patent infringement in the federal court action that RJR commenced against PMI and Altria, PMI’s IQOS distributor in the U.S., on April 9, 2020 in the Eastern District of Virginia.
PMI also filed a partial motion to dismiss RJR’s claims against it. PMI believes that RJR’s infringement action is without merit, and that RJR’s own electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products infringe multiple patents owned by PMI and Altria. PMI is bringing counterclaims to recover “the considerable damages” caused by RJR’s infringements.
“RJR appears to have brought this action in the hopes of stopping [PMI’s] innovative IQOS heated tobacco system, which has a proven track record in switching smokers away from combustible cigarettes, from disrupting its core business in combustible cigarettes and overtaking its secondary line of e-vapor products,” the filing states.
“Having failed to develop a competing offering in the heated tobacco space, RJR apparently now seeks to block that space in its entirety by bringing this meritless litigation. But in its haste to do so, RJR has overlooked the fact that its own line of e-vapor products (which are far less effective in switching smokers away from combustible cigarettes than IQOS) infringe multiple patents owned by [PMI].”
The counterclaim alleges that RJR was concerned by the commercial threat posed by IQOS, and RJR is now attempting to stop IQOS with this case. “But in its haste to stop IQOS, RJR committed two fatal errors. First, it asserted meritless patent claims,” the filing states. “Second, it overlooked the fact that its own e-vapor products infringe multiple patents owned by [PMI] and co-defendants Altria Client Services and Philip Morris USA, Inc. [PMI] thus responds to RJR’s Complaint and brings counterclaims to recover the considerable damages flowing from RJR’s infringement.”