Philip Morris Int’l buys rights to nicotine system

Cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. has purchased the rights to a technology that lets users inhale nicotine without smoking.

The world’s largest nongovernmental cigarette seller told The Associated Press on Thursday that it has 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.

The school does not have a role in Rose’s agreement with the company and won’t receive any money. Terms were not disclosed.

Rose, who led studies in the early 1980s that helped pave the way for commercial nicotine patches as a smoking cessation treatment, said the next step is for Philip Morris International to develop a commercial product using the technology.

The system differs from current medicinal nicotine inhalers available on the market as stop-smoking aids because it delivers nicotine more rapidly to mimic the nicotine “hit” a cigarette provides smokers.

“The other methods of delivering nicotine fall short of providing smokers with the satisfaction that they crave,” Rose said.

Philip Morris 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.

Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a series of steps by tobacco companies to venture into smokeless tobacco and other nicotine products as tax increases, health concerns, smoking bans and stigma cut into demand for cigarettes.

In 2009, Reynolds American Inc., based in Winston-Salem, purchased Swedish company Niconovum, whose nicotine gum, pouches and spray help people stop smoking.