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PMI offers smoke-free alternatives with the potential to reduce the risk of harm for adult smokers who do not quit. Learn about harm reduction, the role of nicotine, and the regulation of smoke-free products.
Discover PMI's rigorous scientific approach to smoke-free products and product assessment. Dive into our research results, peer-reviewed publications, independent research, and expert reports.
PMI believes that offering a range of smoke-free alternatives is essential to ensure individual smokers are able to find a smoke-free product that they can fully switch to.
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Explore PMI Science, where innovation meets harm reduction. Learn about our scientists, smoke-free research, and commitment to transparency in research.
PMI offers smoke-free alternatives with the potential to reduce the risk of harm for adult smokers who do not quit. Learn about harm reduction, the role of nicotine, and the regulation of smoke-free products.
Discover PMI's rigorous scientific approach to smoke-free products and product assessment. Dive into our research results, peer-reviewed publications, independent research, and expert reports.
PMI believes that offering a range of smoke-free alternatives is essential to ensure individual smokers are able to find a smoke-free product that they can fully switch to.
Explore the latest insights and stay informed about upcoming events and conference presentations from PMI scientists.
Ask a question or send us feedback. We're happy to answer.
Gunduz, I.; Nordlund, M.; King, J.; Gustin, B.; Cudazzo, G.; Nesovic, M.; Butin, Y.; Stura, E.; Alriquet, M.; Chauhan, M.; Rossoll, A.; Szostak, J.; Belushkin, M.
Heated tobacco products (HTPs) have emerged as an alternative to cigarettes in the last 10 years. HTPs heat rather than burn tobacco to produce a nicotine-containing aerosol. Avoiding combustion reduces the amount of harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs) in HTP aerosol compared to cigarette smoke. As heating technologies evolve, it is important to thoroughly assess new iterations to confirm that the aerosol they produce contains fewer and lower levels of HPHCs than cigarette smoke. Tobacco Heating System (THS) 3.0 is an induction heating device used with specially designed tobacco sticks. This paper describes the chemical composition, physical properties, cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, and mutagenicity of the aerosols produced by THS 3.0 using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) intense puffing regimen for regular and menthol tobacco sticks. Targeted chemical testing and physics evaluations confirmed that >95% of the aerosol droplets are respirable with substantial HPHC yield reductions compared to cigarette smoke. A standard battery of in vitro toxicology tests was performed to assess the aerosols’ cellular effects. Results from the neutral red uptake, micronucleus, and Ames assays showed that THS 3.0 aerosol fractions induced substantially less cytotoxicity and have substantially lower genotoxic and mutagenic potentials than cigarette smoke fractions. Collectively, the evidence demonstrates that inductively heated tobacco sticks used with THS 3.0 produce aerosol emissions and substantially lower levels of HPHCs similar to those with THS 2.2—a previous version of HTP with resistive heating—leading to reduced in vitro cytotoxicity and genotoxicity compared to cigarette smoke.
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Reduced Risk Products ("RRPs”) is the term we use to refer to products that present, are likely to present, or have the potential to present less risk of harm to smokers who switch to these products versus continuing smoking. PMI has a range of RRPs in various stages of development, scientific assessment and commercialization. All of our RRPs are smoke-free products that deliver nicotine with far lower quantities of harmful and potentially harmful constituents than found in cigarette smoke.