Peer-Reviewed Publications

      Toxicological assessment of Tobacco Heating System 2.2: Findings from an independent peer review

      Boué, S.; Schlage, W. K.; Page, D.; Hoeng, J.; Peitsch, M. C.

      Published
      Mar 14, 2019
      DOI
      10.1016/j.yrtph.2019.03.007
      PMID
      30878573
      Link to publication
      Topic
      Summary

      Offering safer alternatives to cigarettes, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, to smokers who are not willing to quit could reduce the harm caused by smoking. Extensive and rigorous scientific studies are conducted to assess the relative risk of such potentially modified risk tobacco products compared with that of smoking cigarettes. In addition to the peer review of publications reporting individual studies, we aimed to gauge the plausibility of the evidence to the scientific community and appreciate likely necessary additions prior to regulatory submission. Therefore, we sponsored a two-tier peer review organized by an independent third party who identified, recruited, and managed 7 panels of 5–12 experts whose identity remains unknown to us. The reviewers had access to all publications and raw data from preclinical and clinical studies via a web portal. The reviewers were asked questions regarding study design, methods, quality of data, and interpretation of results to judge the validity of the conclusions regarding the relative effects of the Tobacco Heating System 2.2 compared with cigarettes. Once their conclusions were submitted, the experts had the opportunity to participate in an anonymized online debate with their fellow panel members. We present here the results obtained from this innovative peer review effort which revealed supportive or very supportive of the study methods and results, and support the robustness of the studies and validity of the conclusions.

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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.