BAT: Transforming Tobacco Through Science and Innovation

It is undeniable that the industry has been going through a paradigm shift where conventional tobacco products, which have long faced increasingly stringent regulations and lower sales volumes, are rapidly being replaced by next-generation products such as e-cigarettes and vaporizers as well as heat-not-burn devices as more health-conscious consumers are turning to these potentially reduced-risk products (PRRPs).

Key to the development of these PRRPs is science and innovation delivered through Research & Development (R&D). British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, is an industry leader in scientific research, with its papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and easily accessed through its dedicated website www.bat-science.com.

A scientific approach is key, but that approach must also be held to the highest quality standards, says Dr. Christopher Proctor, BAT’s group head of PRRP science. “For the kind of science we do, it's really important that it is of the highest quality. We publish our science in peer-reviewed journals, where other scientists evaluate and comment on the scientific method, the data and its interpretation before publication. We make these articles “open access”, which ensures anyone can read our research. We also openly share our data at scientific and public health conferences and also on bat-science.com, our dedicated science website. In fact, we’ve just relaunched bat-science.com, and it’s now a fresh, modern website focused on PRRPs and the science to support them,” he said.

Dr. Proctor also pointed out that companies developing PRRPs should also adhere to international product standards, for example on battery safety, so that consumers can be reassured that the products they are buying have proper safety standards applied to them.  

Acceptance and Challenges

The concept of tobacco harm reduction is well accepted by the UK government, where organizations such as Public Health England (part of the UK Department of Health) and Cancer Research UK have evaluated the available evidence and concluded that these products are likely to be much, much less risky than continuing to smoke cigarettes.

This, in turn, means that the government has openly recognized the benefits of switching to vaping products instead of continuing to smoke conventional cigarettes, and openly communicates this to consumers. So PRRPs are popular in the UK because consumers have access to high quality, accurate information about these products. In other countries, such as the United States, however, the situation is more complex.

“It’s not as black and white in the US,” said Dr. Proctor. “Scott Gottlieb, who was the commissioner of the FDA until fairly recently, talked actively about a risk continuum for tobacco and nicotine products, and that consumers should have access to products that are likely to be less risky than smoking. However, various US organizations have raised concerns about under-age use of these products.

“This doesn't appear to be an issue in the UK. There is very little evidence of underage use of vaping products. This might be because of how regular usage is defined in each country. In the UK, it's measured as using a vaping product at least once a week whereas in the US the question is ’have you ever used a vaping product?’. If someone has just tried [a vaping product] they seem to get included in those statistics. Interestingly, there are several countries where vaping products used to be banned, where the government has now changed the regulations, based on the available evidence. And I believe there are more countries moving towards this [supporting vaping products] than there are countries that are still actively thinking this is not a good idea,” said Dr. Proctor.

Among those countries that have changed their approach are Canada –  in May 2018 Health Canada introduced new legislation that changed from prohibiting vaping products to allowing them, and the government is now quite vocal about the potential benefits of switching completely from smoking to vaping – and New Zealand, which is now in the process of defining new regulations to allow vaping; and Brazil who is expected to come forward with a law to allow vaping.  

Critics of PRRPs often claim that these products are a gateway to smoking, especially for young people. Dr. Proctor acknowledges that this is a serious issue.

“We need to make sure that these products are marketed responsibly, and that they’re marketed to adult smokers. And we need to make sure that the retail trade realizes that no one underage should be using these products. This is because even though these products are probably much less risky than smoking, they will still be exposing young people to nicotine. These products definitely have to be for adults.”

According to Dr. Proctor, in the UK there is little evidence of PRRPs being a gateway to smoking, and the same is true for most of Europe. In fact, there is evidence that PRRPs offer a gateway out of smoking.

Commenting on the situation where PRRPs are more accepted in the UK, Dr. Proctor had the following observation “I think the reason why the UK government has felt so comfortable is that the tobacco control organization, Action on Smoking and Health [ASH] has done a great job with annual surveys to examine what's happening. They can assess how many smokers are switching, whether there are ex-smokers coming back into nicotine through vaping, any non-smokers becoming vapers and also the rate of underage use. Based on the data in these surveys, the underage rate in the UK appears to be very low. I think governments having access to this kind of data and analysis is very important so that they can monitor trends with these types of products which really are still quite new.

“We are also carrying out similar surveys in some countries. In Japan, for example, we have carried out some surveys looking at who’s using tobacco heating products – our data indicates that it's pretty much exclusively adult smokers switching out of smoking into these products. There’s very little evidence for anyone underage using them.”

Transforming through science

BAT’s goal is to “transform tobacco through science and innovation.” Yet, some critics question or even dismiss their scientific work because, they say, BAT is a tobacco company.

“Our transforming tobacco journey is very much a science-based journey,” says Dr. Proctor. “Some of the research that we do is carried out on our behalf by external independent laboratories. For example, when we do a clinical study we always work with independent clinics and doctors, and they are responsible for the conduct of the studies. So, we know it's high-quality science performed to international standards. In addition, with our clinical studies, we follow best practice as previously established for the pharmaceutical industry: we register the study in advance of starting, which publicly states what our plans are, and then after the study is completed, we publish the results, irrespective of the outcome.

BAT also works collaboratively with entrepreneurs and inventors. One such occasion led to the development of the Vype iSwitch, which contains a “new-to-world” vaping technology called PureTech. Instead of using a coil-and-wick system to generate the aerosol, PureTech is composed of a metal plate – and this addresses the potential issue of “dry wicking” (producing certain toxic compounds) that can happen with coil-and-wick.

First developed by an Austrian inventor whose concept was to change the way aerosol was created to something which is far more efficient, the iSwitch offers a very clean vapor with around 99.8% fewer toxicants than cigarette smoke. “It is also a very efficient generator of vapor so it's very satisfying for the consumers,” explained Dr. Proctor. “We can probably use lower nicotine levels because this system is so efficient at delivering nicotine in a consistent way. So, from a technology point of view, it's really exciting, and from a consumer point of view the product delivers increased taste satisfaction.” The Vype iSwitch is currently available in the UK, in stores, and on the govype.com website.

Keeping an eye on new developments

BAT also established a dedicated Technology Scouting Unit a few years ago; their role is to search for novel, potentially disruptive technologies that could revolutionize vaping or other product categories.

There are a lot of exciting things happening at BAT. “It’s a really great time to be here,” Proctor says. “I find the science fascinating, and my team of scientists along with our technology team and product developers are really excited about the future. The range of products that we have in the pipeline will continue to get better and better.”