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CN Creative acquired by British American Tobacco

By CN Creative, Press Release
Press Release.

 

CN Creative announced today that it has been acquired by British American Tobacco as part of the FTSE 100 Company’s long term commitment to tobacco harm reduction.

CN Creative, which has its own research and development facilities, currently has several e-cigarette products on the market as well as new, innovative e-cigarette technologies in the development pipeline.

Kingsley Wheaton, Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at British American Tobacco, said:

“Our core business is, and will remain in, tobacco but we’ve always made it clear that our goal is to provide those adult smokers who are seeking safer alternatives to cigarettes with a range of reduced-risk products that will meet their varying needs. We believe the innovative e-cigarette technologies that CN Creative has been developing over the past few years will help us move closer to achieving this goal.”

The acquisition of CN Creative is a natural extension of British American Tobacco’s approach to tobacco harm reduction that has been evolving over a number of years.

CN Creative’s founders Chris Lord and David Newns explained: “This is an exciting opportunity that allows us to accelerate the development and successful launch of our innovative and new e-cigarette technologies”

ENQUIRIES
British American Tobacco Press Office
Will Hill/ Jem Maidment
+44 (0) 20 7845 2888 (24 hours)

British American Tobacco Investor Relations
Rachael Brierley +44 (0) 20 7845 1519

CN Creative Press Office
Nick Henderson/Richard McCann +44 (0) 845 500 1140
For website see www.cncbio.com

Need a light? It’s okay, I’ll just plug it in

By Advent Life Sciences, CN Creative, Press Release
Press Release.

 

Louise Hodgetts has struggled to overcome her 30-a-day habit.  A smoker for two decades, she worries about her family’s history of cancer, but nicotine patches and gum failed to free her from the addiction.

Now, the 34-year-old is trying something new- an electronic E-cigarette.

So far, so good.  With the help of the 3in-long piece of plastic she hasn’t smoked the real thing for a month, feels better for it, and has bought a television with the money saved.

“Its working- and I’ve recommended it to my brother,”

said Hodgetts, from Bracknell, Berkshire.

Substitute cigarettes are not new, but the market is beginning to boom.  And tobacco companies are ready to plough substantial sums into finding the next gadget to supply smokers with a guilt-free kick.

With the market for tobacco in relentless decline in the West, cashing in on those who want to quit is the obvious source of growth.

Imperial Tobacco, maker of brands such as Davidoff and Lambert & Butler, has recently done a secret deal to invest in one business that believes it may have the magic formula.

In April, Lorillard, the American company behind Newport cigarettes, bought Blu e-cigarettes for $135m ( £87m).  Japan Tobacco International, owner of Benson & Hedges, has a minority stake in Ploom, another manufacturer, and is working on plans to commercialise the devices globally.

Philip Morris International, the world’s biggest listed tobacco company, is working on a next- generation version of the technology, while British American Tobacco has set up a subsidiary to target the market.

There is good reason for the rush of activity.

“The growth of e-cigarettes has been unbelievable, particularly in the past 12 months,”

said Damien Scott of Skycig, an e-cigarette brand owned by Gibraltar-based Zeus Ventures.

“I don’t think it will stop any time soon.”

Sales of e-cigarettes in America, where there are more than 100 brands, are likely to double this year to $500m, according to analysts at UBS, the investment bank. That is tiny compared with the tobacco market-Americans spent $88 billion on cigarettes last year-yet the growth prospects are enough to lure investors into “non-tobacco nicotine delivery devices”.

Britain is expected to follow the same pattern as America.

An estimated 21% of adults smoke, of whom three-quarters have tried to quit. Businesses and investors backing the new technology hope that it will appeal to those millions-and provide a new source of revenue.  Critics claim the devices simply replace one addiction with another, albeit less harmful without the tar and other damaging substances.

Strikingly, the growth of e-cigarettes does not appear to have hit sales of nicotine patches and gum.  Glaxo Smith Kline, maker of Nicorette, saw worldwide sales of its range grow 3% in the first quarter of this year.  But, with smokers forced out of public places onto the streets for a puff, the new aids are catching on fast.

Most of the market is based on the battery-powered cigarette developed by a Chinese pharmacist in 2003.  These rechargeable devices heat up a cartridge of nicotine in water, releasing vapour to be inhaled.  To date, they have not been hampered by the strict controls placed on medical devices and real cigarettes, but many in the industry expect this to change.

Venture capital firms have also been vying for a piece of the burgeoning market.  In January, Britain’s Advent Life Sciences led a £2m fundraising for CN Creative, which is developing a new type of “smoking cessation device”.

Across the Atlantic, Catterton Partners,which has backed businesses such as Kettle crisps, has invested $20m in Njoy, an American e-cigarette manufacturer.

Two young British entrepreneurs are among those aiming to produce the next generation of cigarette substitutes.

Alex Hearne is the founder of Kind Consumer, which has received investment from business figures such as Sir Terry Leahy, former boss of Tesco, Jon Moulton, the venture capitalist, and Sir Peter Davis, previously head of Prudential.

An asthma sufferer as a child, with parents who smoked, Hearn had good reason to develop a device to help reduce tobacco consumption.

After spending a decade on research, producing more than 700 prototypes, Kind Consumer hopes to apply for approval from the Medicines and Health-care Products Regulatory Agency within 12 months.

“We strongly believe that these devices should be regulated.  The public should know what they are buying,” said Hearn, 29.

His design is not electronic but a kind of cigarette-shaped aerosol that delivers a burst of nicotine through a breath-operated valve.  A battery is not needed.

The device, as yet unnamed, will be sold like cigarettes in a pack, with each one thrown away when the nicotine has been exhausted.

With the battery-powered e-cigarettes, users by one device and then replacement nicotine cartridges as needed.  Hearn said, “No substitute is going to be exactly the same [as a cigarette], but we wanted to try to make our device as close as possible to the experience of smoking.”

His company has received backing from British American Tobacco, the second biggest cigarette maker outside china.  Its Nicoventures subsidiary is funding development and will be the distributor.

Another Briton hoping to crack the market is David Newns, 27, who co-founded CN Creative in 2008.  The company already sells an electronic cigarette, the Intellicig, but is also working towards producing an inhaler under the name Nicadex.  It, too, hopes to receive approval from Health Watchdogs in Britain, Europe and America and will begin the application process towards the end of the year.

That will be one more smoke-free competitor for the tobacco companies, many of which are reluctant to reveal much about there plans to enter the new market.

Bristol –based Imperial Tobacco is the latest of the giants to become involved.  The company admitted it had made “a very small investment” in an e-cigarette business, but refuse to disclose the details beyond saying that the investment did not involve taking an equity stake.

Imperial said the arrangement was designed simply to “build knowledge and expertise in the area”.

The importance of the involvement of the big names should not be underestimated, though. Newns said: “In the past they have said that cigarettes are their business.  For the first time, they are opening their eyes to other innovations, Its very encouraging.”

Cashing in on those who want to stop is the obvious source of growth.

For more information on CN Creative please visit their website here

CN Creative advances regulatory initiatives for its Nicadex™ and Intellicig®

By CN Creative, Press Release
Press Release.

 

UK Manufacturing Facility Receives “Pharmaceutical Grade” cGMP Designation

Plans for Clinical Trial of Nicadex Electronic Inhaler Nicotine Replacement Therapy on Track

Will Leverage MHRA Marketing Submission to Advance European and US Regulatory Strategy

 

MANCHESTER, UK, May 30, 2012 – CN Creative, Ltd. (CNC), a healthcare company providing innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce smoking and smoking-related illnesses, today reported advances in the company’s regulatory and market initiatives for its Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product and Intellicig® electronic cigarettes.

Nicadex is being developed for use as part of medically supervised smoking harm reduction programmes, with a Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) to the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) targeted for year-end. CN Creative plans soon to initiate a UK clinical trial of Nicadex that will provide data for the MAA submission. The company also intends to apply the data and materials generated for the MAA submission in the UK to its regulatory strategy for Europe and the US, in consultation with its expert advisors, European regulatory authorities and the US Food and Drug Administration.

Intellicig is a high quality electronic cigarette currently marketed in 26 countries. The nicotine containing cartridge for both Intellicig and Nicadex is manufactured in the company’s own facilities in the UK using pharmaceutical grade materials that are now fully certified as cGMP, meaning that the manufacturing process adheres to the rigorous guidelines required for medically regulated products such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices. In addition, the electronic device components of Nicadex will be produced in the UK under ISO 13485 standards.

“From the start, our strategy has been to engineer and produce our electronic inhaler nicotine delivery products to medical standards, and we believe this approach is especially appropriate in view of the evolving regulatory situation,”

said David Newns, a co-founder and Company Director of CN Creative.

“Our plans for a clinical trial of Nicadex in the UK are proceeding well and we are on track to file an MAA around the end of this year. We plan to use data and materials from our UK dossier to support Nicadex and Intellicig regulatory filings in Europe and the US, where regulatory requirements are currently being formulated and where the rapidly growing demand for high quality electronic cigarettes is providing considerable traction as we ramp up Intellicig’s market presence.”

About CN Creative
CN Creative has developed a portfolio of products and services focused on harm reduction and smoking cessation including user-friendly nicotine delivery systems and patient-focused smoking cessation and support services such as QuitDirect,, the Intellicig® electronic cigarette, ECOpure high purity nicotine preparations and NRT Direct. CNC’s Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy product is in development for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes.

 

For more information, please contact:

CN Creative
Media Corporate
Barbara Lindheim, BLL Partners

David Newns, CN Creative
blindheim@bllbiopartners.com
david.newns@cncbio.com
+1 212 584-2276 +44 (0) 7834 767 367

CN Creative appoints Chief Financial Officer

By CN Creative, Press Release
Press Release.

 

MANCHESTER, UK, April 4, 2012 – CN Creative, Ltd. (CNC), a healthcare company providing innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce smoking and smoking-related illnesses, today announced that Tim Byrne has been appointed Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. Byrne, who is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, is an accomplished financial executive whose experience ranges from start-up ventures to international publicly listed companies. Most recently, he was a Founding Partner of The Management Alliance, which provides strategic and financial consulting and management services. Previously, Mr. Byrne was CEO and CFO of Airtours plc, a FTSE 250 listed company with diversified global operations and an annual turnover of £5.2 billion.

CN Creative markets a portfolio of products and services for smoking cessation and harm reduction. The company’s Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is to commence clinical trials shortly and the company intends to submit a Marketing Authorisation Application to the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) later this year. Regulatory submissions in other European territories and the US will follow.

“Tim’s extensive experience in growing global firms is proving invaluable, and we are delighted to have him as part of CNC’s management team,”

said David Newns, co-founder and Company Director of CN Creative.

“His broad expertise is especially helpful as we are advancing our pioneering electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy towards MHRA submission, while also expanding our existing businesses in the UK and overseas.”

Dale R. Pfost, PhD, Chairman of CN Creative and a General Partner at Advent Ventures, commented,

“Tim brings us a global financial perspective and a keen appreciation of how to manage the challenges of high growth companies, and he is well-grounded in the nuts and bolts of implementing the financial management systems critical to our success.”

About CN Creative
CN Creative has developed a portfolio of products and services focused on harm reduction and smoking cessation, including user-friendly nicotine delivery systems and patient-focused smoking cessation and support services, such as QuitDirect, the Intellicig® electronic cigarette, ECOpure high purity nicotine preparations and NRT Direct. CNC’s Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy product is in development for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes. For more information, visit www.cncbio.co.uk.

For more information, please contact:

CN Creative Media
Barbara Lindheim,
BioCom Partners
blindheim@biocompartners.com
+1 212 584-2276

Corporate
David Newns, CN Creative
david.newns@cncbio.com
+44 (0) 7834 767 367

CN Creative Raises Series A Funding to Develop First Medically Approved Electronic Inhaler Nicotine Replacement Therapy for Smoking Cessation

By CN Creative, Press Release
Press Release.

 

—Financing Led by Advent Life Sciences—

—Intends to File for UK MHRA Approval of Its Nicadex™ Inhaler Nicotine Replacement Therapy in 2012 with Regulatory Filings in the US and Globally Thereafter—

—CNC Combining Its Broad Expertise in Smoking Cessation and Electronic Cigarette Technology to Offer Smokers New Medical Options to Reduce Harm and Help Them Quit—

MANCHESTER, UK, January 25, 2012 – CN Creative, Ltd. (CNC), a healthcare company providing innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce smoking and smoking-related illnesses, today announced it has raised a Series A financing round led by Advent Life Sciences.  The financing raised £2 million, equivalent to approximately US $3.1 million.  CNC intends to use the investment to continue and finalise development of its Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes.

Despite large-scale public health efforts, about 20% of adults in the UK and the US continue to smoke.  Smoking remains the most common cause of preventable death in the Western world and generates enormous costs for healthcare systems worldwide.  Two-thirds of smokers report that they would like to quit, and about three-quarters of current smokers say they have tried to stop, but smoking is a powerfully addictive habit that can make quitting very difficult or almost impossible.  Fewer than 10% of smokers are estimated to achieve success when trying to stop smoking on their own.  In addition, studies show that currently available NRT products help only a small proportion of smokers to stop smoking permanently.

“CN Creative provides innovative approaches to reduce the harm caused by smoking, by helping smokers quit whenever possible or reduce their consumption of cigarettes when total abstinence is not achievable,”

said David Newns, a co-founder and Company Director of CN Creative.

“We believe our Nicadex electronic inhaler NRT, which will deliver pharmaceutical-grade nicotine using advanced electronic vaporisation technology, has the potential to help significant numbers of smokers stop entirely or significantly reduce their exposure to harmful tobacco smoke.”

Nicadex is similar in concept to the electronic cigarettes currently marketed to adult consumers by CN Creative and others, but with several key differences.

First, Nicadex will be tested in clinical trials and then submitted for regulatory review under the process used for other prescription NRT products, initially through the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and then through the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies.

Second, CNC intends to market the Nicadex electronic inhaler as a medically supervised NRT designed to reduce the harm caused by smoking and to help smokers quit as part of a comprehensive smoking cessation programme.

Third, the Nicadex electronic inhaler has been specially engineered and will be manufactured in the UK under the same stringent standards used for regulated medical products, and the pharmaceutical-grade nicotine solution it uses is being produced by CNC in its own UK-based cGMP facilities approved for the manufacture of prescription drugs.

“The support from our colleagues at Advent Life Sciences will enable CNC to undertake the clinical trials and medical regulatory review needed to confirm the safety and efficacy of Nicadex and to prepare for commercialisation.  We expect to file for regulatory approval of the Nicadex electronic inhaler in the UK later this year,”

added CN Creative co-founder and Company Director Chris Lord.

Nicadex is a hand-held device that delivers purified nicotine to the user through the vaporisation of a pharmaceutical-grade solution of nicotine.  A rechargeable lithium battery powers the vaporiser that instantly turns the nicotine solution into a vapour that is inhaled by the user.  Many users report that the sensation of using the Nicadex device is similar to smoking, but the vapour contains no smoke and none of the carbon monoxide, tar or thousands of toxic impurities that make smoking tobacco products so damaging to health.  In addition, since there is no smoke, there are no smoke by-products that can cause “second-hand” harm to others.

“Decades of smoking cessation initiatives have had a positive impact on public health but millions continue to smoke and new approaches are urgently needed,”

noted long-time smoking cessation and public health advocate Dr. Chris Steele.

“I am encouraged by the potential of the innovative Nicadex electronic inhaler being developed by CNC, which provides a smoke-free, tobacco-free nicotine replacement product in a format that is highly acceptable to smokers.  If approved, Nicadex could be a valuable addition to our smoking cessation toolkit, immediately reducing the harm caused by smoking and enabling many smokers to proceed over time to full cessation.  CNC’s emphasis on clinical testing, regulatory review, medical supervision and supportive services is encouraging, and I look forward to seeing the results of the clinical trials the company will be conducting this year.”

A distinctive element of CNC’s strategy is its recognition of the value of harm reduction.  As noted in the influential 2010 UK government report, A Smokefree Future,

“The tar and the carbon monoxide in smoked tobacco are the primary causes of smoking-related disease and death. …  Nicotine (in the doses obtained from smoked and smokeless tobacco) is not a significant contributor to disease.”

The report proposes that harm reduction measures should be an important element of smoking cessation programmes, noting that

“this strategy … opens more routes to quitting, which, we believe, will help thousands more smokers to quit successfully.  The new routes will encourage smokers to … manage their nicotine addiction using a safer alternative product … and dramatically reduce the harmful effects to their health, and the harmful effects to those around them. …”

Similarly, after a comprehensive review of the medical and scientific literature, the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) became the first medical organisation in the US officially to endorse tobacco harm reduction as a viable strategy to reduce the death toll related to cigarette smoking.  It advocates in its white paper, The Case for Harm Reduction, that inveterate smokers – who are unable or unwilling to abstain from nicotine and tobacco – should be encouraged to switch to lower-risk smokeless tobacco products.

Dale R. Pfost, PhD, a General Partner at Advent Life Sciences and the newly appointed Chairman of CN Creative commented, “CNC’s strategy of applying their smoking cessation expertise and the technology innovations first deployed in their Intellicig® electronic cigarettes to provide smokers with an advanced electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy is a potential game changer.  We believe that Nicadex will significantly increase smokers’ chances of ending or reducing their reliance on smoking, while also reducing the well-documented health risks caused by smoking tobacco.  With this investment in CN Creative, we aim to continue our track record of investing in innovative life science companies with the potential to become best-in-class in their fields.”

Kaasim Mahmood, a Partner at Advent Life Sciences who is joining the CN Creative Board of Directors, added,

“We believe CNC’s products have great clinical and commercial potential, and we are delighted to provide the CNC team with financial and strategic support as they embark on the clinical studies and regulatory review process central to the success of this exciting new approach.”

About CN Creative
Headquartered in the Bioscience Incubator at Manchester University in the UK, CN Creative provides innovative and sustainable solutions to global problems arising from smoking and smoking-related illnesses.  It has developed a distinctive portfolio of products and services focused on smoking cessation and harm reduction, including user-friendly nicotine delivery systems and patient-focused smoking cessation and support services.  CNC’s diverse products include QuitDirect, an NHS-accredited supplier of comprehensive smoking cessation services, the Intellicig® electronic cigarette, ECOpure proprietary high purity nicotine preparations and NRT Direct, which provides traditional nicotine replacement therapy products and patient support services to publicly and privately sponsored smoking cessation programmes.  CNC’s Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy product is in clinical development for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes.  For more information, visit www.cncbio.co.uk.

About Advent Life Sciences
Advent Life Sciences is the dedicated Life Sciences Fund at Advent Venture Partners, one of Europe’s best-established growth and venture capital firms.  Advent Life Sciences invests predominantly in early-stage and growth equity life sciences companies in the UK, Europe and the US.  It will back companies that have a first- or best-in-class approach in a range of sectors within the life sciences, including new drug discovery, enabling technologies, med-tech and diagnostics.

The Advent Life Sciences team is a leader in European life sciences capital.  Its investments include  PowderMed, a therapeutic DNA vaccine company sold to Pfizer; Thiakis, an obesity treatment company acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals; Respivert, a drug discovery company focused on respiratory diseases acquired by Johnson & Johnson; EUSA Pharma, a rapidly growing transatlantic specialty pharmaceutical company focused on late-stage oncology, pain control and critical care products; and, Algeta (OSE: ALGETA), an oncology company developing treatments for bone metastases and disseminated tumours.  For more information see www.adventventures.com.

For more information, please contact:

CN Creative
Media
Barbara Lindheim or Jennifer Anderson, BioCom Partners:
blindheim@biocompartners.com, +1 212 584-2276 ext. 201
janderson@biocompartners.com, +1 212 584-2276 ext. 202
Corporate
David Newns
david.newns@cncbio.com +44 (0) 7834 767 367

Advent Life Sciences
Sophie Kreifman, Grayling:
sophie.kreifman@grayling.com; +44 20 7592 7924