SALON

Tuesday, Dec 18, 2012 3:00 AM UTC

Star Scientific to stop making tobacco products

By

Topics: From the Wires,

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Star Scientific Inc. plans to stop making and selling its dissolvable smokeless tobacco products at the end of the year and instead focus on its dietary supplement business, the company said Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Glen Allen, Va.-based company, which used to focus primarily on research of a tobacco curing process that would prevent the formation of carcinogenic toxins in tobacco, said its board voted unanimously to discontinue the Ariva and Stonewall products. It had sold varieties of tobacco lozenges that dissolve in the user’s mouth since 2001.

The move, expected to generate annual savings of $1.1 million, was motivated by “continued losses and low sales” and that restrictions that prohibit the company from making statements about the comparative health risks of tobacco products have made it “extremely difficult to effectively market” its dissolvable tobacco products, the company said in the filing.

Instead Star Scientific has shifted its emphasis to the dietary supplements it sells through subsidiary Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, including its Antabloc product for anti-inflammatory support and the CigRx supplement to reduce the urge to smoke. Last month the company said its CEO and several shareholders were investing $20 million in the firm and its top executive is reducing his salary until the company is profitable.

“Continuing to manufacture dissolvable tobacco products has had a negative impact on our ability to interest leading scientific and medical research centers in undertaking clinical research,” said the company, which changed its Nasdaq ticker symbol to STSI from CIGX in August.

Dissolvable tobacco is finely milled tobacco pressed into shapes like tablets that slowly dissolve in a user’s mouth. They are gaining the attention of tobacco companies looking to offset a decline in cigarette use as smokers face tax hikes, growing health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma.

The company said it plans to look for opportunities to license its dissolvable tobacco technology.

In March a Food and Drug Administration scientific advisory panel said dissolvable tobacco products could reduce health risks compared with smoking cigarettes but also have the potential to increase the overall number of tobacco users. The report studying the products was mandated under the 2009 law giving the FDA authority to regulate the industry.

___

Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum .

More By Michael Felberbaum.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations