New constraints, lucrative potential
The company Nerudia, whose headquarters are in Liverpool, focuses its services on the development, production, analysis and regulatory compliance of nicotine products, and the electronic cigarette in particular. The company said it was looking forward to participating to and influence the implementation of the European Directive on Tobacco Products (EU TPD).
This work is part of the work of the European Commission that should specify, in particular, the dictionary of the notification data, the reportings, the tank anti-leak filling system. On their website, the company’s leaders recognize that if the regulation should not stifle innovation, it is the guarantee of product quality. Regulatory costs should be minimized where possible even if all the proposed combinations for a liquid (nicotine, ratio PG/VG/ flavorings) should be assessed. Changing one of these parameters may affect the stability and security of the product.
In the state of discussions , the TPD anticipates for the production of e-liquid that each combination be recorded separately. A boon for a company able to provide the appropriate data for the commercialization of a new product.
Freedom of choice
According to one of the founders of Nerudia, transparency over vaping products will give “smokers the freedom of choice”. An almost paradoxical marketing concept when you listen to Jean-François Etter explaining the technical constraints that will soon weigh on the business, and that will likely stifle its development potential while promoting the tobacco industry.
Nerudia is a British company founded in 2013. It is a joint-venture between the Anglo-German Contraf-NICOTEX-Tobacco GmbH (CNT), the largest global provider of pharmaceutical-grade nicotine and two British entrepreneurs David Newns and Chris Lord.
The two British had already founded CN Creative, which markets the products of the brand Intellicig, they sold to the tobacco giant BAT in 2012 for £ 40M (€ 55.5M) approximately. CN Creative stand out after taking steps to obtain a marketing authorization for its product Nicadex. This application was still pending approval by UK regulators in December 2014.
Nerudia invested £ 11M (€ 15M) in a factory equipped with a testing laboratory able to verify regulatory compliance of electronic cigarette products. It aims at providing its customers to market products of quality and to guide them through the regulatory pathways for new products.
While the new regulatory framework for the electronic cigarette in Europe is deemed unsuitable by many public health experts, some players seem nevertheless to remain optimistic.
