For over 30 years, Philip Morris International (PMI) has been innovating by exploring ways to commercialise less harmful alternatives to combustible cigarettes. Ten years ago, the company embarked on an ambitious journey to revolutionise public health by developing and promoting science-based alternatives to traditional cigarette smoking. The goal was simple yet transformative: to create a smoke-free future where adult smokers could switch to less harmful products.
The company harbours an ambitious goal to have its smoke-free products account for two-thirds of its net revenue by 2030. As of December 31, 2024, PMI’s smoke-free products were available for sale in 97 markets, with estimates showing that 45.1 million people around the world use PMI’s smoke-free products. Beyond commercial growth, public health data also shows that regions where these alternatives have been embraced have significantly reduced cigarette smoking prevalence, as well as cancer and other comorbidities linked to combustible cigarette use.
Countries such as Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States have seen a decline in smoking rates, with Sweden making history after being certified smoke-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) following a reduction in smoking rates to 4.5% in 2024.
Yet, despite technological innovation and growing public acceptance of smoke-free products, regulation has been slow to keep pace with this shift.
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“Regulators are actually moving extremely slow because we are ten years into smoke-free products. Ten years is quite a lot of time for everyone to read the science, verify the science, come up with their own science, and conclude,” said Jacek Olczak, PMI’s Chief Executive Officer, at the 2025 Technovation event in Dubai.
“Regulators are stuck with idealistic thinking that people shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. This has led almost to the prohibition of these new products in many places, or restrictions on information about these products, because some regulators, especially within Ministry of Health circles, think that people simply shouldn’t do it.”
PMI believes there is a need for the creation and promotion of government policies that support Tobacco Harm Reduction efforts, as this is vital to shifting legal-age smokers to less harmful alternatives.
“Our assumption at the beginning was that everyone agreed smoking is a very bad thing from a health perspective. There is no question about it. The question is, what options do we have? Society agrees that people shouldn’t smoke, but the reality is people do smoke. If we don’t give them safer alternatives, they will continue smoking,” added Olczak.
He further said there is a need for policy revision in some jurisdictions to clearly distinguish between combustible and non-combustible nicotine products. Appropriate regulation that enables the availability of better alternatives to legal-age adults can also guard against youth access, require minimum quality standards to ensure safety, and generate revenue for governments. By supporting appropriate risk-proportionate policies, governments and public health bodies can help adult smokers who don’t quit move to less harmful, smoke-free alternatives and accelerate the timeline toward achieving a smoke-free generation.
Echoing the same concern, Tommaso Di Giovanni, PMI Vice President of Communication and Engagement, said laws regulating smoke-free nicotine products are obsolete.
“Unfortunately, the vast majority of laws around the world were enacted when these smoke-free products like e-cigarettes, heated (not burned) tobacco, or pouches did not exist. These laws are not adequate today because they don’t allow us to tell people who smoke that alternatives exist. And they don’t allow us to talk to them about the benefits and risks,” he said.
He added that while switching to smoke-free products has empowered an estimated 41.5 million people to abandon cigarettes for PMI’s heat-not-burn alternatives, the innovation has faced massive pushback from regulators. In some jurisdictions, alternatives have even been banned outright.
Adding a scientific perspective, Tomoko Iida, the Director of Scientific Engagement at PMI, believes misinformation has been nicotine’s biggest undoing over the years, and regulators have latched onto that.
“In the United States, over 80% of physicians believe nicotine causes cancer. That is why we really need the support of the media to address this misinformation. We need to remind smokers that the primary cause of smoking-related diseases is the burning of tobacco, not nicotine. Nicotine is one of the most misunderstood compounds in the world. There is a lot of misinformation,” said Iida.
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However, some public health experts argue that while smoke-free products may reduce harm compared to traditional cigarettes, they are not risk-free. They emphasise the need for independent, long-term studies before granting these products full public health endorsement.
Research shows that cigarettes release nicotine by burning tobacco. At the same time, burning tobacco generates the vast majority of harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke and associated with smoking-related diseases. Over 100 chemicals found in cigarette smoke have been classified by public health experts as harmful or potentially harmful. This makes cigarettes the most dangerous way to consume nicotine.
As society increasingly embraces smoke-free innovation, experts agree that science-based regulation will be key to determining how quickly the world transitions to a truly smoke-free future.
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