Philip Morris International has purchased the rights to a technology that lets users inhale nicotine without smoking, reports The Associated Press.

Cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International (PMI) yesterday announced that it bought the patent for an aerosol nicotine-delivery system developed by Jed Rose, director of the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Terms were not disclosed.
The system differs from currently available medicinal nicotine inhalers because it delivers nicotine more rapidly to mimic the nicotine "hit" a cigarette provides to smokers.
The move is an important step in PMI's efforts to develop products that have the potential to reduce the risk of smoking-related diseases, said Doug Dean, senior vice president for research and development at PMI.
PMI spokesman Peter Nixon said it may take three to five years to develop a commercial product that would be considered an alternative to conventional cigarettes. 
Rose said that by avoiding the burning process altogether, a way could be found of giving smokers nicotine to inhale but without toxic substances. The researcher who led the initial studies in the early 1980s that helped pave the way for commercial nicotine patches as a smoking cessation treatment hopes that "inhaling combusted, burning tobacco will someday be a thing of the past." (pi)