July 26 (Reuters) - Tobacco group Philip Morris
International will stop selling Marlboro cigarettes in
Britain within a decade, its chief executive told https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9822189/Tobacco-giant-Philip-Morris-stop-selling-cigarettes-Britain-ten-years.html
the Daily Mail, in line with the country's wider ambition to
stamp out smoking by 2030.
"I think in the UK, ten years from now maximum, you can
completely solve the problem of smoking," Chief Executive
Officer Jacek Olczak said in the report, adding that it would
require the help of governments and regulators.
Doing its part, Olczak said the Marlboro brand "will
disappear" from British store shelves along with its other
brands, ending a more than 100-year association with the
country.
Olczak, who has embarked on a more aggressive strategy to
diversify the world's largest tobacco company away from
cigarettes, has previously https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/24/marlboro-maker-calls-cigarette-ban-britain
called on Britain to treat cigarettes like petrol cars and ban
them in 10 years time.
The $153 billion-dollar company sells Marlboro cigarettes
outside the United States, after it split off from parent
company Altria in 2008. Altria sells Marlboro in the U.S.
Earlier this month, Philip Morris launched a 1.05 billion
pound bid for British asthma drug-maker Vectura as part
of its "evolution into a broader healthcare and wellness
company," that will also see it get more than 50% of its revenue
from smoke-free products and at least $1 billion from products
beyond nicotine by 2025.
The deal has received backlash https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/25/tobacco-firm-philip-morris-calls-for-ban-on-cigarettes-within-decade
from anti-tobacco groups and has spurred a reaction from the
World Health Organization, which called such healthcare
partnerships by Big Tobacco as undermining its progress on
controlling its "deadly products."
(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard
Orr)
