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Are High-Tech Tobacco Products Healthier? FDA Wants More Data

  • U.S. Regulators post report on Philip Morris’s iQos device
  • Agency staff wants cancer study results coming later in 2018
An iQos Store in Tokyo, Japan, on June 26, 2017. 

An iQos Store in Tokyo, Japan, on June 26, 2017. 

Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg
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Philip Morris International Inc. wants to shift to a “smoke-free future,” but U.S. regulators are concerned that they will need more data to fully assess potential health risks from the company’s new electronic cigarettes.

While the company’s iQos product reduced exposure to some harmful chemicals compared to smoking, users could still develop certain precancerous lesions similar to those that can be caused by traditional cigarettes, Food and Drug Administration staff said in a report Monday.