
Mark Forster, principal scientist, BAT. Photo credit: BAT
Mark Forster is BAT’s principal scientist and has had a crucial role in developing the FTSE-listed company’s global Omni™ initiative. Launched in London in September 2024 and presented by Forster to the broader public during a keynote speech at the recent InterTabac exhibition in Dortmund, Germany, the initiative is an evidence-based, accessible, and dynamic resource aimed at demonstrating how science and innovation can combine to make a smokeless world a reality.
Tobacco Asia (TA): Mark, you held an interesting keynote speech regarding BAT’s new global initiative at the recent InterTabac. Please tell us a little bit about that.
Mark Forster (MF): What I was presenting, essentially, is an overview of the scientific risk assessment of our smokeless products. At BAT, our purpose is to create “A Better TomorrowTM”. Our ambition at BAT is to achieve 50% of group revenue from our smokeless products by 2035. To achieve that, we’ve created a portfolio of smokeless products: heated products, vapor products, oral tobacco, and nicotine pouch products. So, in my presentation I was going through our scientific risk assessment framework, which is a nine-step process that we apply to assess emissions, exposure, and reduced risk potential of our smokeless products, when compared to smoking cigarettes.
TA: And how are you evaluating this? Can you share some details, please?
MF: The framework evaluates the emissions, exposure, and risk of our smokeless products and compares them to smoking cigarettes. With this, the first thing to bear in mind is knowing that what is causing the majority of the harm from smoking a cigarette is combustion. By combusting tobacco, you start this incredibly complex reaction where more than 7,500 individual chemicals are created, of which 150 are known to be harmful, and around 60 are known to be carcinogens. As soon as combustion is removed, that big complex reaction doesn’t happen, and everything simplifies a lot. Our heated products, for example, operate in a way that they heat tobacco to temperatures below 300 degrees Celsius, which is well below the temperature at which combustion of tobacco occurs. And by doing that, what happens is that that complexity you find in smoke, which I said contained over 7,500 chemicals, reduces by a factor of 10. We’re now down into an aerosol that contains hundreds of chemicals – instead of the thousands found in smoke. Not only are there much fewer chemicals, but their concentration compared to smoke also is typically greatly reduced as well. So, these harmful chemicals are either not present in a heated product aerosol at all; or if they’re present, they’re at a much lower concentration.
Then there are vapor products, in which the tobacco has been removed altogether. So, you have an e-liquid, which contains propylene glycol, glycerol, flavors, and nicotine, and that liquid is now heated to a temperature of no more than 200 degrees. And what you get, what you deliver, is an aerosol that has, again, a hundred times fewer chemicals than cigarette smoke. The number of chemicals in the aerosol are in the tens rather than the thousands that you see in cigarette smoke.
And, if you want to go even further, let’s talk about nicotine pouches. You are basically on very simple grounds now, where you’ve got cellulose material as a matrix with added nicotine and flavors. We put in high-quality grade materials. And what you’re seeing is that you’re now down in the low tens of chemicals instead of the thousands in cigarette smoke.
So, those types of assessments really are foundational, because when you look at the results, the chemical complexity you see in cigarette smoke is no longer there in smokeless products.
TA: But when it comes to vaping, there are other risks involved, are there not? So is switching from cigarettes to vapes essentially not a potential case of exchanging one set of health risks for another?
MF: What you can see within the science is that compared to cigarette smoke, vaping aerosols are much simpler, less complex. And based on a weight of evidence, our scientific judgment is that our vapor products, while addictive and not risk free, are less risky than smoking, assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. That is why we encourage those who would otherwise continue to smoke to completely switch to a vapor product backed by scientific evidence.
Our smokeless products are first stewarded at an ingredient level, carefully assessing each ingredient and material that is used in the product. For vaping products, ingredients to be included in e-liquids must be at minimum food grade, with nicotine being pharmaceutical grade. Similarly, for tobacco heating products, all non-tobacco ingredients must be at minimum food grade or food-contact grade. Beyond toxicological assessments of ingredients and materials, device safety is also carefully assessed during product development. Prototypes and final products are tested against and must pass several international safety standards. Oral nicotine pouches are also first stewarded at an ingredient and material level. Each ingredient and material must be at minimum food grade, and the nicotine must be pharmaceutical grade.
Unfortunately, not every manufacturer of smokeless nicotine products adheres to such high standards of product stewardship. This is one of the reasons why BAT is calling for a smarter regulatory framework that, while allowing adult smokers to access these products, protects consumers and guards against unintended consequences like underage access.
TA: There are still dozens of countries that have actually banned vapes and heated products. So, what could be the reasons for them to refuse so stubbornly lifting their vape bans?
MF: As a scientist, it seems very odd that these bans exist. We at BAT, we support regulation. Tobacco and nicotine products should be regulated. We believe that tobacco harm reduction [THR] – the complete switching of smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to alternatives with a reduced risk profile – is the best regulatory approach to reducing the harm, at a population level, associated with smoking cigarettes. We have a significant body of scientific evidence to support the reduced risk profile of our smokeless products. And, when required, we conduct new science to support our regulatory submissions. Regulation should be based on the best available scientific evidence. And lessons can be learned from countries like Sweden, the UK, New Zealand, and Canada that have embraced THR, and have experienced an associated acceleration in the decline of smoking rates.
TA: But smokeless products are not yet mature. They are still evolving. So is there a possibility that the science, the scientific evidence, is going to change in the future?
MF: That is a great question. In fact, I was asked a similar question during the panel discussion at InterTabac. An audience member asked, “What do you think smokeless products are going to be like in five years’ time?” And I replied that, to be honest, I couldn’t guess five years ago what those products are today. Consumer preferences are evolving constantly.
That’s the challenge. It’s hard to predict what we’ll see are the products in the future, because we don’t exactly know today what consumers are looking for in five years’ time. The only thing that we can stand behind and have confidence in in five years down the line is that technology will very likely have evolved to make these products even more acceptable for adult smokers looking to switch from cigarettes to smokeless products. The other thing is that there are still a billion smokers in the world. Why haven’t they switched to smokeless products? Is it because these current smokeless products don’t work for them or because of other barriers to adult smokers accessing these products? So, what I hope to see in the future is that new technology and regulation evolves to further encourage smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to switch to smokeless products.
What we do have, however, is long-term epidemiological data for traditional oral tobacco products (snus) that demonstrates its THR potential. Through our risk assessment framework, we have demonstrated that our oral nicotine pouches have reductions in toxicants, toxicity, and exposure lower than snus, which would support the bridging of snus epidemiological data to the oral nicotine pouch category. So, even as technology and products evolve, we can use bridging as part of our overall risk assessment framework for new products.
TA: May I speak on behalf of my fellow peers who haven’t given up cigarettes yet? I’ve tried switching to vapes and heated tobacco products several times over the past few years. And to be honest, it just didn’t give me the same mouth feel, the same sensory satisfaction. So, I went back to cigarettes. Even though modern vapes are getting progressively better, tasting more closely like a combustible cigarette now than they ever did, they still have a long way to go. And I think that is the main reason why so many smokers haven’t made the switch yet.
MF: That is a valid point. Essentially, you’re a smoker, as you say, and that is your view of why you haven’t switched.
Consumer choice is driving the transformation of the tobacco industry. Adult smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, are more likely to switch to a product that delivers comparable satisfaction. That is why we are obsessed with innovation and invest more than £300 million a year in r&d to develop smokeless products and assess their risk profile. Innovation will eventually address those barriers for switching. Sometimes you’ll see in history that a technology or an idea can come out at the wrong time when people aren’t ready. The first heated products came around in the late 1980s, early 1990s, but it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that we saw traction in heated product growth. It was because those first heated products did not meet the preferences of smokers. Now they are, and that’s what innovation is bringing to us.
But, what we also need to make sure is that we don’t forget to back everything up with science. It’s not right to just assume that a new technology is very similar to the earlier one. We still need to make sure that we’re grounded in science because only then can we have the confidence to stand behind a product. Science shows that smokeless products have a reduced risk profile compared to cigarettes. It’s not a mere suggestion. That’s why all innovation and science must go hand in hand, and that’s how we operate at BAT. For instance, at our r&d facility in Southampton [UK], we’ve invested £30 million in a new innovation center to have science and innovation at the same site to make sure to bring those new technologies to the world.
TA: Your new global initiative is called Omni™. How did you come up with that name?
MF: Omni means “everything or all.” As a resource, Omni™ brings together hundreds of independent scientific studies, BAT’s own research into its innovations, and examples of THR in action, such as Sweden which stands on the cusp of becoming the first country to go smokeless as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Omni™, in that context, is a living resource for scientists, public health authorities, regulators, policy makers, and investors. We’ve got a web presence where these stakeholders can go, read the evidence for themselves, learn, understand, download information, and much more.
But we don’t want it to stop there. We want to start a conversation, a discourse, an open dialogue with stakeholders because we want to understand whether we can answer their questions. We also want to understand what’s still missing, what else we need to talk about, what we need to do as a collective community to make a smokeless world a reality.
We sometimes may find that regulators are making decisions without evidence or without conversation. Omni™ is going to be the platform on which we hope to spark conversation and bring people together for dialogue. We just had our first transformation forum, which was “Forward Thinking for a Smokeless World” and was part of the launch of the Omni™ global initiative. We will conduct many more of these transformation forums in the future, bringing awareness to the evidence that supports THR.
TA: If I am not mistaken, BAT already began years ago to diversify into smokeless products. So, what drives this new campaign? Is it to not let the awareness about THR die down, or perhaps to further reinforce this awareness?
MF: We continue to advocate for open and inclusive conversations with stakeholders as essential to “Building a Smokeless World.” We are playing our part in progressing awareness and understanding of the science behind THR, which we believe is one of the greatest public health opportunities available today.
BAT has come a long way since launching our first smokeless product, a vapor product called Vype, over 10 years ago. Back then, we had only one smokeless product in one market with thousands of consumers. And the science behind smokeless products and THR was still foundational.
Today, our portfolio of smokeless products is available across 82 markets with 25 million consumers. In 13 markets more than 50% of revenue is from smokeless products. Now there is a comprehensive body of scientific evidence in support of smokeless products and THR. We wanted to capture all this progress in one document to raise awareness of THR and engage in an open dialogue and discussion with stakeholders.
Already today, several public health organizations and regulators are supporting the use of smokeless products. However, to ensure that the full potential of the THR opportunity is realized, much more focus is required by regulators to ensure that adult smokers in all markets across the world, who would otherwise continue to smoke, have access to smokeless products and accurate information about their relative risk compared to cigarettes – so that they can make an informed decision about switching.
“A Smokeless World” will only be achieved through the adoption of THR, and this will require more dialogue with stakeholders and whole-of-society solutions. We’re ready to lead and be part of that dialogue. It’s too important not to.
(For more information, visit the Omni™ platform at www.asmokelessworld.com.)

Mark Forster delivering his keynote speech at InterTabac 2024. Photo credit: BAT