Nelson DeMelo – The Philip Morris International company is reinventing itself, but probably not in the way you expected. On 7/25 Jacek Olczak , CEO of Philip Morris International, announced their intent to stop selling cigarettes in the UK within the next 10 years. According to Olczak this a part of a corporate strategy to help phase out smoking in the UK. The goal being to stop smoking all together. This is in alignment with the UK governments blueprint for Britain to go ‘smoke-free’ by 2030s, which includes cigars.
Olczak , who became the company’s CEO in May, is driving the company’s “smoke-free” transformation. He stated the company’s new mission is to provide “less harmful alternatives to cigarettes” to their consumers. He further added
“Our ambition is that more than half of our net revenues will come from smoke-free products in 2025” and that he wants them become more of a “healthcare and wellness company” with executive pay tied to its new mission to “unsmoke the world”.
At the same time the company has come under scrutiny for making a bid for Vectura, a British pharmacy company that makes asthma inhalers , while still manufacturing tobacco products.
The company has already been hit by a UK ban on menthol cigarettes in 2020 which is part of their 2030 mission to ban smoking.
Meanwhile here in the US the FDA continues to lobby for stricter regulations on menthol, flavored tobacco, and premium cigars. This Includes a recent win to maintain the 2007 predicate date related to product approval :
While governments pushing for more tobacco oversight is not new, there is more legislation being pushed and revisited than we’ve seen before. We’ll continue to monitor and report as more develops.
Philip Morris International is not affiliated with Philip Morris USA.
