Close-to-real-world Science - Imperial Brands Science

Certain research is required by regulators to launch products, but as a responsible manufacturer we’re actively choosing to go beyond routine testing.

Why?

We believe making a meaningful contribution to THR means going beyond simply performing ‘science for compliance’.

As consumer preferences, smokeless product innovation, and the THR debate itself continue to all evolve at pace, the accompanying research must too. So, while we continue to substantiate our smokeless products across all stages of our scientific assessment framework, we’re also conducting a series of novel in-market studies intended to help demonstrate their real-world effectiveness.

Our behavioural scientists track adult smoker participants, all of whom have no intention to quit at the study onsets, to understand how they use our smokeless products in their daily lives to help cut down – or even entirely replace – their cigarette usage over time.

Next Generation Thinking

While none of our smokeless products are medically-licensed smoking cessation products, and are not marketed or sold as such, we believe the data this research produces will increasingly help build belief in their THR potential among key stakeholders like regulators, public health bodies, the media, plus adult smoker and nicotine consumers.

Below are some of our headline learnings across the three studies…

Infographic showing the result of three 'actual use' behavioural studies using heated systems and vapes.

[1] For the purposes of these studies, ‘substantially reduced’ is defined as a >50% reduction in cigarettes smoked per day.
[2] Since the PULZE study was conducted, the EU has introduced a ban on the sale of heated tobacco consumables, including iD, with characterising flavours. i.e. any product with a clearly noticeable taste or smell that isn’t tobacco.

In summary, it’s clear that both PULZE & iD and blu have exciting clear ‘real world’ potential to help adult smokers either substantially reduce, or completely stop, using cigarettes.

Future State

However, we’ve only scratched the surface of the rich insights from this research.

Our scientists are currently re-analysing the data to find out even more about individual subjects’ switching journeys. Our intention? To gain an even better understanding of consumer behaviour to help support our future smokeless innovation pipeline.

We’re also excited to use the results of this research to engage with a broad range of stakeholders – including regulators, public health bodies, and the media – to help build belief in smokeless products and reinforce our commitment to make a meaningful contribution to harm reduction.

All three studies are set to be published in the peer-reviewed academic literature in due course; meanwhile, you can watch a video of our PULZE & iD study below.

Layla Malt
Behavioural Sciences & Surveillance Senior Manager