Altria has unveiled two new smoke-free products it is developing to move smokers away from their current main product, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
The two new products expand the ways smokers can get the taste and other sensory satisfactions they get from cigarettes, as well as the nicotine they seek, company executives said at a New York session with major investors and Wall Street analysts.
One product is a handheld device that looks similar to a vaping device but can heat a tobacco capsule. It’s meant to appeal to tobacco users who want to inhale a stronger tobacco flavour than vaping now delivers, but it doesn’t look like a cigarette like the heated stick devices Altria markets in a partnership with Japan Tobacco, Chief Operating Officer Jody Begley said.
Altria, meanwhile, expects to file with the Food and Drug Administration for preliminary permission to market a Marlboro-based stick for the partnership’s devices in the first half of 2025, Begley said. He said the new heated capsule device – called “SWIC” – is still in development, “but I think we’re really close to delivering a final product.”
The other new product also aims to offer users a more traditional taste than another of the company’s current smokeless products. This product is a nicotine pouch, like the company’s “on!” product, but with a taste and feel more akin to traditional snuff, including Altria’s 200-year-old flagship brand Copenhagen, and should appeal to dippers – oral tobacco users – who want a product they can hold in their mouth and not spit, which can be uncomfortable in some social settings, Begley said. Altria will seek preliminary FDA approval for this product next year.
Gifford said Altria’s acquisition of e-vape company NJOY for USD 2.75 billion, announced earlier in March when the company ended its tie-up with controversial vaping company Juul, puts it in a strong position in this part of the smoke-free market. Begley said NJOY is working on a Bluetooth-based technology that could lock NJOY devices if an underage person tries to use them.
Read more about Altria’s Investor Day in New York here