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BAT’s Peter Taylor and Southampton’s mayor at the opening ceremony.
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Much of the work at GR&D is focused on developing and testing new technologies that could be used in products that in the long term may be shown to be less harmful than conventional cigarettes. The science involved is complex and spans many disciplines, which is why the company has expanded its research capabilities and expenditure in R&D. The next stage of this development will significantly increase the laboratory space available for tobacco harm reduction research, BAT says.
Research and development activities at BAT’s Southampton site started as early as 1956, Dr Chris Proctor, the company’s chief scientific officer, told TJI. “During the first twenty, thirty years, we focused on tobacco harm reduction (THR). Our R&D efforts took place in co-operation with the UK government in the 1970s to 1990s, but there was little discussion on THR from the government then.
To modify products for THR, BAT looked back at the US; however, the tobacco industry there had no product modification programme, despite its collaboration with the National Cancer Institute, until the late 1990s.”
Only in 2001, when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published its report Clearing the smoke: Assessing the science base for tobacco harm reduction, were terms coined and possibilities for THR looked at, he continued, which encouraged companies, including BAT, to develop potentially reduced-exposure products.
Versatile team
Until the end of the last century, BAT’s Southampton laboratory was rather chemistry-based. Then the company increased its efforts and brought more biologists and groups of researchers into the organisation; with the groups came new disciplines and the attempt to be far more transparent about what BAT does.
There are currently more than 1,000 employees on the Southampton site, including hundreds of scientific staff working on tobacco harm reduction. Their experiences and disciplines include areas such as analytical chemistry, disease modelling, biotechnology, genetics, combustion science, bioinformatics, materials science, dosimetry and toxicology.
Furthermore, the company employs cancer specialists and has formed different groups for the main diseases caused by smoking, cancer, COPD, and cardiovascular diseases.
The clinical studies carried out by the R&D team on THR were also applicable to other areas, Proctor said. One of the latest studies from the R&D team looks at how smoking behaviour changes during the day. To measure the exposure, BAT works with aerosol specialists to see which particles enter the lungs and how they change on their way into the body.
In the third quarter of 2010, BAT hopes to publicise the results of a clinical study of prototype cigarettes designed to produce less toxicants in smoke (see TJI 3/2009). The next step, Proctor explained, will be a longitudinal study with 1,000 participants, in which the company intends to test a potentially reduced exposure product with 10 mg of tar yield.
TJI report |
