Photo: Philip Marris International (PMI)

Philip Morris International (PMI) has built the world’s most popular and iconic cigarette brands. Now we’ve made a dramatic decision: We’re building our future on smoke-free products that we believe are a much better choice than cigarettes for adult smokers.

Smoking causes serious diseases, and the harm it causes is top-of-mind when society looks at our business. Despite tobacco control efforts, the WHO estimates that 1.1 billion people currently smoke cigarettes and this number is projected to remain largely unchanged until 2025.

Addressing this challenge is where we can make our greatest contribution to society and toward the Sustainable Development Goals – notably, Goal 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages). For PMI, this translates into a significant shift toward potentially less harmful products that smokers find satisfying. Our vision is to create a smoke-free future by leading a full-scale effort to ensure that smoke-free products ultimately replace cigarettes – to the benefit of adult smokers and society, our company and shareholders.

This decision has set us on a new path, placing the reduction of harm associated with our products at the core of our efforts to completely transform our business. Today’s advances in science and technology finally make it possible to develop innovative products that have the potential to reduce the risks associated with continued smoking and that consumers are willing to adopt and switch to. These advances are transforming our industry – and for commercial, ethical, and public health reasons, PMI is transforming itself. With more than 2 million smokers already converted to the first of our smoke-free products, this is just the beginning.

The opportunity: Be part of the solution

PMI manufactures and sells more than 800 billion cigarettes per year to an estimated 150 million adult consumers in more than 180 countries. Smoking cigarettes causes serious diseases and the best way to avoid or reduce the risk of smoking-related diseases is never to start or to quit. Smoking is also addictive, and it can be difficult to quit. Although there is no substitute for quitting, we believe we can have a positive impact on public health by promoting better alternatives to help reduce the health risks of the world’s 1.1 billion smokers.

Support for the role of innovation for public health

The adoption of sound regulations can significantly accelerate the rate at which adult smokers switch from cigarettes to smoke-free alternatives, while minimizing any unintended consequences.

First of all, measures to encourage smokers to switch should complement, not replace, regulatory efforts to reduce the prevalence of smoking.

Second, because these alternative products for smokers are addictive and not risk-free, measures should be taken to ensure that smokers are accurately informed about the health risks and that youth does not consume nicotine in any form.

Last but not least, we believe governments can play a critical role in reviewing the science related to these products and in giving smokers confidence that any reduced-risk or reduced-harm claim is scientifically substantiated and accurate.

The power of technology

Many people will wonder why we are only doing this now. For more than a century, the basic design and use of cigarettes has not changed. Shredded tobacco leaves are burned which produces smoke. The cigarette smoker inhales nicotine and flavors along with various other substances – a number of which are toxic – contained in that smoke. Although nicotine is addictive and not risk-free, experts agree that the primary cause of smoking-related diseases is found in a number of toxicants generated by combustion and in cigarette smoke. Several attempts have been made in the past to develop better alternatives to smoking, but drawbacks in the technological capabilities or the lack of consumer acceptance have meant they were unsuccessful. Technological developments now allow us to avoid combustion while still meeting consumer expectations.

Better alternatives for smokers

At PMI we are investing in resources, time, money, and people to develop and assess the risk-reduction potential of these new smoke-free products. With more than $3 billion invested in R&D to date to apply, develop, and assess new technologies, we have now developed a suite of non-combustible nicotine products – including e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products – that have the potential to significantly reduce individual risk and population harm compared to continued cigarette smoking.

Heated tobacco products are a relatively new category of product, releasing a nicotine-containing tobacco vapor without burning the tobacco. PMI currently commercializes one such product: IQOS.

Developing and assessing potentially less harmful alternatives for smokers requires rigor and time. We are led by standards and practices adopted long ago by the pharmaceutical industry, and our scientific assessment program is in line with guidance issued by the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products.

Our research includes laboratory and clinical studies in accordance with internationally accepted Good Laboratory Practices and Good Clinical Practices. It also includes research to verify if consumers accurately understand risk communications and studies on product use in real-life conditions.

We have compiled a substantial amount of scientific evidence on our electronically heated tobacco products. The results so far clearly indicate that IQOS is likely to reduce the risk of harm compared to cigarette smoking. In December 2016, PMI submitted a Modified Risk Tobacco Product application for IQOS to the FDA. Today, IQOS is available in key cities in more than 25 countries worldwide, with plans to reach 30 to 35 by the end of 2017.

External validation

We are committed to the transparency of our scientific methods, protocols, and results, and we invite public scrutiny. As part of this process, we invite independent verification of the data on our smoke-free products, based on several key components, including: publication in peer-reviewed scientific literature; an in-depth analysis of study reports by independent experts; verification of research methods and study results; and our Investigator- Initiated-Studies program, which supports external scientists in conducting independent research related to our products (e.g., through the provision of products, equipment, and/or financial and technical support).

Reaching the tipping point among consumers 

We can only achieve a significant public health benefit when a critical mass of cigarette smokers switch to better alternatives that are scientif ically substantiated, ultimately leading to population harm reduction (see The harm reduction equation above – Figure 1). That means that smoke-free products must appeal to smokers by delivering a taste and sensory experience that leads consumers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to switch to them. As such, all manufacturers should be encouraged to develop, scientifically assess and commercialize a range of better alternatives for smokers to satisfy varied consumer preferences in all countries where they operate.

The business case: A new social contract with society

Some will question our motives and our vision to replace cigarettes with smoke-free alternatives based on the distrust surrounding our industry; others will wonder why we would completely change our existing, very profitable business model.

By developing and assessing better products through science and innovation, and prioritizing their commercialization, we want to address the negative health impact of our combustible cigarette business head-on. This sets our company on a new course, but it also offers a new social contract with society as we bring our expertise, resources, and solutions to the table to contribute toward reducing the risks of smoking- related non-communicable diseases and achieving SDG Goal 3 on health. 

Moreover, our success in the cigarette business gives us the resources to pursue our ambitious vision of a smoke-free future. This decision is also completely aligned with the expectations of adult smokers (who want satisfying alternatives to cigarettes but with less risk of harm), society, and our shareholders as part of achieving long-term business growth.

Achieving our vision

Already more than 2 million smokers have converted to our new smokefree product, IQOS, and we are rapidly building new manufacturing facilities and converting existing ones to be able to meet growing adult smoker demand. Later this year, we will publish a set of transformation metrics reporting on the resource commitment we are putting in place toward achieving our smoke-free vision in addition to supporting the creation of an independent foundation that will focus on accelerating progress toward a smoke-free future.

We will regularly publish our progress against these metrics so that the public can monitor our efforts and check whether we are progressing in the right direction. 

We will also set out how we plan to transform our company from the inside out, including how we work, our culture, and our facilities to make our smoke-free future a reality. 

We recognize the challenges ahead in meeting our ambition and that a collaborative approach is key to success. Today, we have an opportunity to be part of the solution in addressing the harm associated with cigarette smoking, both in dialogue and in partnership with civil society and governments.

Go to www.pmi.com and www.pmiscience.com for updates on our progress toward a smoke-free future.