NetworkNewsWire
Editorial Coverage: Despite the scientifically established
harmful health effects of smoking, millions of people around the
world still do it. Because of this, many large companies are
looking for healthier ways to deliver active ingredients from
tobacco and cannabis to people with a smoking habit.
- More than a billion people around the world smoke tobacco or
cannabis, leading to 6 million deaths a year.
- Companies in the tobacco and cannabis sectors are looking for
alternative delivery systems.
- Some alternatives may be more effective — and healthier — than
smoking.
Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (CSE: LXX) (OTCQX: LXRP)
(LXRP
Profile) is one of the companies
looking at alternative solutions, using fatty acids to make a
pleasing, fast, effective delivery system for nicotine and
cannabidiol (CBD). Tobacco company Altria Group, Inc.
(NYSE: MO) is creating lower-risk tobacco products and
recently received FDA approval for its latest offering.
British American Tobacco Industries p.l.c. ADR (NYSE:
BTI) has created a tobacco heater that produces fumes
instead of smoke, reducing the potential harm from consumption.
GW Pharmaceuticals Plc (NASDAQ: GWPH) has produced
a liquid CBD product that is the first U.S. Food and Drug
Administration-approved medicine of its type. Most telling of all,
Philip Morris International, Inc. (NYSE: PM) has
announced a long-term strategy to move away from smoking as the
core delivery system for its products — a huge step for a global
tobacco giant.
Money in Smoking
Smoking habits are currently undergoing significant changes.
Increased awareness of the dangers of tobacco has led to a decrease
in the popularity of cigarette smoking in many parts of the world.
Meanwhile, the legalization of cannabis in a growing number of
markets is turning marijuana smoking into big business, taking it
out of the hands of criminals and attracting innovative
pharmaceutical and bioscience companies.
But while the growth of the cannabis industry has been welcomed
by many, it has raised the same concerns faced by the tobacco
industry. Whether cannabis users are looking to benefit from its
health-giving properties or to enjoy it as a recreational drug,
people who smoke it are exposing themselves to similar risks as
other smokers, including lung cancer. If the cannabis industry
wants to keep growing and the tobacco industry wants to avoid
collapse, both need to find new ways to deliver the benefits of
their products while avoiding the proven risks of disease.
Alternatives to Smoking
Lexaria
Bioscience Corp.'s (CSE: LXX) (OTCQX: LXRP) solution
offers a viable alternative. Founded in its
current form in 2014, Lexaria may seem like a relative newcomer,
but its technology is already providing leaps forward. By focusing
on delivery systems for existing compounds, including both nicotine
and the active ingredients found in cannabis, the company is
developing specialist solutions to serious health problems.
Lexaria’s main technology is DehydraTECH™. This provides an
unusual means for helping the human body absorb beneficial
substances and drugs, based on the recognition that many of these
molecules are lipophilic, or fat soluble. By combining the drug
molecules with fatty acids, DehydraTECH provides a new way for the
drugs to enter the body.
Lipophilic compounds face a variety of challenges in entering
the human body. Isolated from other flavors, they often taste and
smell bad, making them off-putting to consume. Once they enter the
body, human systems have trouble absorbing them. The compounds are
vulnerable to destruction in the stomach and being filtered out by
the liver. As a result, they have low bioavailability, or the
extent to which they’re used by the body.
Smoking, vaping and large-dose consumption are all ways of
getting around this problem. But DehydraTECH provides another way.
It’s almost tasteless and odorless, making it palatable for
edibles. Being combined with fatty acids makes it easier and faster
for the body to aborb, with five to ten times greater absorption
through the intestine.
Consumption of active compounds through DehydraTECH has two big
advantages. First, the consumer avoids smoking and the damage and
diseases to the lungs associated with that. Second, the increased
and more rapid bioavailability means that a higher amount of the
drug molecules are taken in. This reduces the amount people need to
consume to gain the benefits, whether medical or recreational.
For consumers, DehydraTECH may represent a potential step
towards a healthier lifestyle. And for investors, it’s a way to
enter the tobacco and cannabis markets while avoiding the harm
associated with those products — an opportunity to make money while
maintaining a clean conscience and reputation.
Big News for Nicotine
Lexaria recently announced the results of its second in
vivo study of 2018 evaluating the use of DehydraTECH as a
nicotine delivery system. The results proved the delivery of more
nicotine, more quickly, than the positive controls.
The study, which was carried out by a third-party laboratory,
looked at the absorption of nicotine delivered in an edible form
via DehydraTECH. It found that the method led to significantly
greater absorption of nicotine: there was 90.2 percent greater
absorption within the first 10 minutes using the DehydraTECH system
instead of the tested control. Speed of absorption is one of the
most important issues for non-inhalation forms of nicotine
delivery, given the rapidity with which smoking gets the drug into
the body, so this is a strong sign for the potential of DehydraTECH
as a smoking alternative. Because it delivers the nicotine so
quickly, Lexaria’s technology could open the door to entirely new
forms of consumer products around the world.
Finding such an effective method for nicotine delivery may be a
huge step forward. Despite the efforts of health professionals,
there are currently 6 million deaths from the consequences of
smoking reported around the world every year. That number is
expected to hit 8 million by 2030. A system that delivers nicotine
as quickly and effectively as smoking could be a huge boon for
people looking to quit, allowing its producers to tap into a US
$680 billion international market, excluding China.
Working with Cannabis
Nicotine isn’t the only drug with which Lexaria has experienced
recent successes. It has also announced the results of a
double-blind, randomized clinical study using DehydraTECH to make
cannabidiol (CBD) bioavailable in human subjects, with considerable
success.
Participants in the study took 90mg doses of Lexaria’s TurboCBD™
product. This contains cannabidiol (CBD), an active ingredient in
cannabis that doesn’t produce the mind-altering “high” properties
of marijuana’s tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) compound. CBD in a
specific form recently received FDA approval to treat certain forms
of seizure disorders and is in widespread use in wellness products.
TurboCBD is designed as a way to more quickly and effectively
deliver CBD and its beneficial effects.
As in the nicotine study, Lexaria’s technology delivered the CBD
more quickly and effectively than alternative delivery systems.
Within 30 minutes, it had delivered over 300 percent more CBD into
the bloodstream, and it continued to have a higher impact across a
six-hour study.
The increasing legalization of cannabis and cannabis-derived
medicine risks increasing the number of smokers in the world.
Because smoking serves as an effective means for delivering
medicinal chemicals into the bloodstream, it is appealing to users.
But by providing an effective alternative for delivery, Lexaria is
offering a possible method for users to benefit from CBD without
suffering from smoking’s side effects.
Following the success of these two studies, Lexaria may be the
only pure-play biotech public company option available for
investors looking for opportunities to help reduce harm in both the
tobacco and cannabis industries. It’s a significant possibility in
a changing industry.
More Companies Exploring Alternatives to
Smoking
With health concerns at the forefront of so many people’s minds,
several companies are looking for smoke-free ways for their
consumers to enjoy tobacco and cannabis.
One of the largest tobacco companies in the world,
Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE: MO), is exploring ways
to reduce the risk inherent in tobacco. The company has been
working on modified risk tobacco products, a category of
consumables that allows a company to claim its products are safer
while selling them in the United States. In March, it submitted its latest application for one of these
products to the FDA. The company has so far steered away from
direct involvement in cannabis to avoid the federally banned drug’s
range of legal and PR complications.
British American Tobacco Industries p.l.c. ADR (NYSE:
BTI) is trying to make tobacco consumption healthier
through the use of alternative delivery systems. Its glo products
heat tobacco rather than burning it. The resulting vapor is
approximately 90 to 95 percent less toxic than cigarette smoke,
giving smokers a healthier way to satisfy their nicotine cravings.
With its recent launch in
Italy, glo is now available in seven countries.
On the cannabis side, GW Pharmaceuticals Plc (NASDAQ:
GWPH) has recently received FDA
approval for a CBD-based drug that will be America’s first
plant-derived cannabinoid prescription medicine. Designed to tackle
child-onset epilepsy, it makes CBD available as a medicine for
children in need of its benefits and adds a CBD medicine to the
market that doesn’t bring with it the dangers of smoking.
Even Philip Morris International, Inc. (NYSE:
PM), one of the most evocative names in cigarette
merchandising, is looking towards a smoke-free future. The company
has made a strategic decision to move away from a
reliance on smoking, finding ways to provide customers with the
satisfaction of tobacco without the harm smoke brings. It’s a shift
that could provide big opportunities for companies with smoke-free
nicotine technology to license.
These Fortune-500 tobacco companies are faced with vital and
dramatic threats to their traditional business model as smokers
desperately search for less harmful alternatives to cigarettes and
governments increasingly restrict access to cigarettes. In the past
year alone, these companies have suffered billion-dollar losses in
their market caps as consumer preferences shift. This is clearly a
problem needing an immediate solution.
As hundreds of millions of people around the world maintain
their smoking habits, the harmful effects on their health and their
neighbors’ health continue to be a huge concern. Companies that can
create safer alternatives could bring great benefits and enormous
profits from such innovations.
For more information on Lexaria, please visit Lexaria
Bioscience Corp. (CSE: LXX) (OTCQX: LXRP)
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