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British American Tobacco Plc’s heat-not-burn traditional cigarette glo. The authors of a new study say that smokers who switch exclusively to glo achieved significant improvements in several indicators of potential harm compared with smokers who continued to smoke. They are not available in the U.S.
British American Tobacco’s new line of Hyper X2 glo e-cigarettes comes in a variety of colors.
The conclusion of a yearlong research study of 267 people in the United Kingdom found a prominent reduced-risk role for British American Tobacco Plc’s heat-not-burn traditional cigarette glo compared with traditional cigarettes.
The final report was published last week by the Journal of Internal and Emergency Medicine. A preliminary six-month report was released July 1.
The glo product has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
It is the latest in a long line of smokefree tobacco and nicotine product reports posted by the Italian research group.
“The full results showed that smokers switching exclusively to glo ... achieved significant and sustained improvements in several indicators of potential harm associated with early disease development compared with smokers who continued to smoke,” according to the study authors.
“This included lung disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease.”
The publication notes the four primary researchers are employees of either BAT or R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and that BAT holds the intellectual property rights to the research. The report listed that glo is not risk-free and can be addictive.
Reynolds American Inc., BAT’s largest global subsidiary, has about 2,500 employees at its U.S. headquarters in Forsyth County.
Researchers reviewed smokers of traditional and heat-not-burn cigarettes for 12 months. The smokers were between ages 23 and 55, in good general health. Some wanted to quit and others did not.
Researchers determined that the individual health improvements of those smoking glo adds “to the weight of evidence that supports glo as a less risky alternative for adult smokers who would not otherwise quit.”
David O’Reilly, director of scientific research at BAT, said the study “allows us to assess the changes that adult smokers switching exclusively to glo experience, by assessing early indicators of potential harm associated with disease development.”
“It provides much-needed new evidence about the size of the change and durability of the effect switching completely to glo can have, and reinforces glo’s potential as a reduced-risk product.”
Smokers who did not intend to quit were randomized to either continue smoking cigarettes or switched to using only glo.
Smokers who indicated they wanted to stop smoking were offered nicotine replacement therapy and access to a cessation counselor.
Meanwhile, a group of never smokers was also included to act as a control group. They continued not to use any tobacco or nicotine products.
Participants were required to attend monthly clinic visits, where samples of blood, urine and other measurements were taken. These samples were tested for “biomarkers of exposure” (to selected cigarette smoke toxicants) and “biomarkers of potential harm.”
The primary study findings were:
“Our findings support the notion that the deleterious (causing harm or damage) health impacts of cigarette smoking may be reduced in smokers who completely switch to using tobacco heating products,” according to the report.
“For most biomarkers measured, the reductions seen in people using glo were similar to those in participants who stopped smoking completely.”
As BAT highlights how its efforts are increasingly in line with public-health goals to reduce U.S. and global traditional cigarette consumption, it continues to face deep skepticism from anti-tobacco and public health advocates.
Most anti-tobacco advocacy groups scrutinize smokeless innovations to determine whether they could serve a public-health benefit — or work as gateway products to cigarettes, particularly for youths.
In January 2020, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams released a 30-year update on smoking-cessation efforts that provided a mixed message on the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are not currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a quit-smoking aid, and are not considered as safe products for any user.
“E-cigarettes, a continually changing and diverse group of products, are used in a variety of ways,” Adams said in the 20-page consumer guide.
“Therefore, it is difficult to make generalizations about efficacy for cessation based on clinical trials involving a particular e-cigarette. More research is needed on whether e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation and to better understand the health effects of e-cigarettes.”
Adams also noted the need to “connect with smokers where they are.”
BAT has said it believes the cumulative nature of the report will “show that, over the past decade, the number of people who incorrectly believe vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking conventional cigarettes has risen in the UK, Europe and the U.S.”
“This is despite several scientific reviews, published in the same period showing, that vaping products manufactured in accordance with quality standards present less risk to health than cigarettes.”
“The scientific evidence is clear — but consumer misperceptions remain,” BAT said.
glo is available primarily in Japan where it had a 6.2% market share among all nicotine products as of July.
Analysts note that BAT is playing catch-up development-wise to Philip Morris International, which has garnered the lion’s share of attention and public-health criticism with its pledge to eventually snuff out traditional cigarette sales.
For example, the FDA approved in June 2020 the company’s international version of heat-not-burn traditional cigarettes being marketed as modified-risk tobacco products.
The heat-not-burn product is marketed globally as IQOS, but in the United States was being sold as Marlboro HeatSticks.
However, in November, the U.S. Trade Representative affirmed a pivotal legal victory by BAT involving its patent-infringement lawsuit against rival Philip Morris International.
On Sept. 29, 2021, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a final determination of a violation of the Tariff Act of 1930 by Philip Morris USA Inc. and Altria Client Services LLC as it related to two BAT product patents.
As a result of the ITC ruling, PM USA is barred from importing PMI’s IQOS 2.4, IQOS 3, IQOS 3 Duo heat-not-burn cigarette products.
It also was ordered to halt future sales of Marlboro HeatSticks already in the U.S. that included convenience stores in the Triad and North Carolina.
Altria filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles patent lawsuits. A hearing was held in June in which ITC attorneys recommend that the appellate court uphold the agency’s decision.
That appeals process could take up to a year to reach a decision, with the likelihood of a successful appeal not favorable, according to industry analysts.
The glo study comes as BAT is in the early stages of a transformation from traditional cigarettes to potentially reduced-risk tobacco and nicotine products.
BAT said in June it had reached 19.4 million consumers of next-generation products worldwide, up from 18.3 million on Dec. 31.
For fiscal 2021, new-category revenue, which has a heavy Reynolds influence, was at $2.79 billion, up 51.8% over fiscal 2020.
New category products are led by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse — the top-selling U.S. electronic cigarette, along with glo and modern oral products led by top-selling Camel Snus and Velo.
Vuse’s market share rose from 37.4% in the previous report to 39%, compared with Juul declining from 30.7% to 29.4%. The latest Nielsen analysis of convenience-store data represented the four-week period ending Aug. 13.
According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes don’t appear immediately in Nielsen.
In recent months, the shadow of a potential banning of Juul Labs Inc.’s e-cigarettes from U.S. retail shelves has accelerated the market-share gains of Vuse.
In May, BAT debuted its Vuse Go disposable style in the U.K. with further market rollouts planned for the second half of 2022.
BAT chief executive Jack Bowles expressed confidence in June that BAT will meet its goal of at least $6.79 billion in annual new-category revenue by 2025.
The manufacturer said it has spent about $1.25 billion on next-generation product development during the first half of 2022.
A BAT-compiled report released in June summarizes the findings of 10 years’ worth of scientific studies on smoke-free products. Some of the studies found a reduced-risk element to electronic cigarettes while others cautioned that such products were no safer than traditional cigarettes.
“This paper is a comprehensive summary of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers and other evidence published by an estimated 50 institutions over the past decade,” O’Reilly said in June.
“We hope this paper will be used as a resource by public health authorities, and support adult smokers seeking to understand the breadth of scientific evidence that exists to inform their choices.”
In July, BAT unveiled its latest attempt at closing a substantial market share and innovation gap in the heat-not-burn category with the hyper X2 version of its glo brand in Tokyo. It is not available in the U.S.
How glo hyper X2 performs will be critical for BAT, considering that Japan is the top global market, representing about 85% of heat-not-burn traditional cigarette sales.
The hyper X2 version offers “advanced induction heating technology in a smaller, lighter weight device ... with a separate boost function for faster heating,” the company said.
Kingsley Wheaton, BAT’s chief marketing officer, said hyper X2 “marks another key milestone in our transformation as we build the brands of our future.”
“Since launching our first glo product in Japan in 2016, we have built glo into a billion-dollar global brand through our deep consumer insights, science and innovation.”
There are plans for hyper X2 to be rolled out in the other 24 global markets in which glo products are sold.
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British American Tobacco Plc’s heat-not-burn traditional cigarette glo. The authors of a new study say that smokers who switch exclusively to glo achieved significant improvements in several indicators of potential harm compared with smokers who continued to smoke. They are not available in the U.S.
British American Tobacco’s new line of Hyper X2 glo e-cigarettes comes in a variety of colors.
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