*The article is published with the support of Philip Morris Bulgaria
Recently you released the latest results related to your leading smoke-free alternative in your portfolio and they are impressive. Would you elaborate?
We are making great progress and are on track to achieving our objectives for 2025. As of the end of March 2023, we now have about 26 million users of which 18 million have abandoned cigarettes and switched to our leading smoke-free alternative. Only in Europe, the region that I am responsible for, and which Bulgaria is part of, we have more than 10 million users. We are at 40% of our revenues in Europe coming from smoke-free products, 35% on the global scale. The product is available in almost all the markets in Europe with the exception of three. Globally we are present in 78 markets. So, I think by whichever metric you look at it this is very robust progress.
What more can be done to persuade people to move away from cigarettes and towards potentially less harmful alternatives?
Different consumers have different preferences. We have the clear example of Sweden where the use of smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes is widespread. There are also other examples such as Japan, Italy, Greece where our smoke-free alternative is prevalent. What can be done? The consumers should be provided with access to these products and educated about what makes smoking so harmful, explaining that the primary problem is the combustion. I would put raising awareness first and I think that Bulgaria can do more in this respect.
Can the countries and governments do more to help achieve this goal – 1 billion people, which is the number of smokers in the world today, to be persuaded to switch from cigarettes to smoke-free alternatives?
Regulations are one of the things that can either accelerate this switching from cigarettes or that can make it significantly more difficult. And we have at this point good examples of both. Regulations that differentiate the various products, promote awareness, facilitate the availability and affordability of the products those types of regulations significantly accelerate switching out of smoking. Regulations that impede or intentionally block this process maintain the status quo and leave people who do not quit with the only other option of continuing to smoke.
Until recently there was not enough data to monitor the health impact of the smoke-free alternatives. What is the situation today?
There's more and more data. And the more studies are conducted, especially independent studies by different governments and regulatory agencies, the more data we will have. Last year we acquired Swedish Match. We have been since then closely looking at the case of Sweden. You can argue that today Sweden is de facto a smoke-free country. Smoking incidence in Sweden is just above 5% so they are really close to fully eliminating cigarette smoke. 30 years ago the smoking rate in Sweden was 24% and was similar to the average in Europe. This is an example of how an alternative to cigarettes can facilitate switching out of smoking. Moreover, given that the product has been available on the market for a long period of time, we now have public health data about the overall smoking-related morbidity and mortality, and they are much lower, in some cases to the extent of 40% lower, than the average in Europe.
We also have other encouraging data from independent sources in Japan, which start showing that only 7 years after our smoke-free alternative was launched on the Japanese market the hospitalizations for pulmonary diseases, associated with smoking, appear to be beginning to decline in correlation with the dramatic reduction in the smoking prevalence in Japan. This study did not prove causation and further long-term research is needed but it does illustrate the potential positive impact that smoke-free products can have once they are available and accepted by adults who would otherwise have continued smoking.
Your CEO Jacek Olcak recently stated that the scientifically substantiated smoke-free alternatives can accelerate the decline in cigarette smoking and urged the governments to follow the successful examples of countries such as Sweden and Japan. How are the regulators expected to interpret his appeal?
The tobacco control measures that have been implemented for decades do not work quickly enough globally and may even contribute to people continuing to smoke. Ignoring the science, the data and the technological advancement in the real world could slow down the potential positive health effects, from the current smokers fully switching to smoke-free alternatives compared to the effects that would be achieved if only the current tobacco control measures were applied. The public health impact of ignoring the role of the smoke-free alternatives in this process may be enormous for the consumers and society.
What is the situation in Bulgaria?
I recently learned that representatives of the government and the scientific community in Bulgaria are making moves in terms of recognising the role of harm reduction in the legislation. This is a good sign. Bulgaria at this point has a total of about 2 million smokers which is about 38% of the population. Today we have about 230 000 users of our smoke-free alternative. I visited Bulgaria recently and I've seen promising things. I saw that the consumers know about the product, know that it is different from cigarettes and understand the benefits from fully switching to it and abandoning cigarettes. So, things are moving in the right direction.
You are undergoing a large-scale transformation towards your smoke-free mission. What does that mean for the company?
Since 2008 we have invested more than USD10 billion in this smoke-free transition. More than that, we are investing in the human capital that we have everywhere in the world that is uniquely focused on guiding this transition. I think that the facts clearly show that we are making progress in achieving our goal – putting an end to cigarettes. In this journey of ours we have developed so much science, so much technology, so much knowledge that allows us today to think of what else we could apply it to outside of the nicotine world. To consider if there are other things that we can do with all the science and technology that can benefit society and humankind. Yes, we believe in this and therefore we are looking at other possible applications of science and technology that are related to health and wellbeing.
Sounds very interesting. Seem like PMI is changing its trajectory...
Why not? We have developed so much in terms of science and understanding, especially how the lungs work. Look at our smoke-free alternative - a few years ago thinking of having a device of such small dimensions that can do induction, that can create aerosol to the level of precision that we have today, was unimaginable. And today we have this technology. Why not use it for other applications beyond nicotine to the benefit of society?
