Top Chinese vape companies researching nicotine alternatives

Delhi Delhi. China’s three major vape companies are researching nicotine-like chemicals they think could work as nicotine substitutes in vape-like products, company executives said, but investigating health effects may still require “years.”One such chemical, 6-methyl nicotine, is made in a lab, has a chemical structure similar to nicotine and is already used in some vapes in the United States. But regulators and researchers have warned it may be even more potent and addictive than nicotine.

E-liquid makers Hangsen International Group and Xinwei Biotech, as well as Smoor International, a top contract manufacturer for vapes and other smoking alternatives whose clients include big tobacco companies, said more studies are needed to determine whether such chemicals are safe. “Smoor will not rush into this,” Eve Wang, the company’s executive director, said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. He said a small team at Smoor is investigating such chemicals, known as nicotine analogs, to understand how they work and what their effects are.

“We should treat it like a pharmaceutical product, so we can really understand its health effects before we commercialize it… I think it will take many years of research,” he said. Yu Kang, head of Hangsen International’s research institute, and Hailey Xu, head of global communications at Xinwei Biotech, said their companies were also researching such chemicals.