19 September, 2024
Global tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) have sold the pharmaceutical company Vectura Group Ltd after just three years and at considerable financial loss, due to the backlash they have faced.
Many organisations, including the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and European Lung Foundation (ELF), campaigned for UK regulators to intervene in the original acquisition of Vectura by PMI in 2022, highlighting that permitting the world’s largest tobacco company to purchase a company supplying medicines to treat lung disease, was both unethical and not in the public’s best interest.
Dr Filippos Filippidos, Chair the ERS Tobacco Control Committee responded to the news:
“Though we had hoped, alongside other like-minded organisations, to influence UK regulators to intervene and make such a purchase impossible before it happened, we are pleased to see that the ethical response to PMI’s ownership of Vectura has resulted in this ‘offloading’. It serves as a deterrent, but it doesn’t guarantee that another acquisition similar to this would not happen in the future. ERS therefore still calls for firm regulations to be put in place.”
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