New Philip Morris research center has special mission: Goal is to develop tobacco products that are less harmful

Oct. 19--Almost nothing screams tobacco inside Philip Morris USA's new $350 million research and technology center in downtown Richmond.

Indeed, the nation's top cigarette company is allowing smoking only in designated areas of the building, a sleek structure dominating the skyline in the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park. But for the 100 people already working there, and the 400 others scheduled to move there in the next few months, tobacco and the harm it can cause is a top concern.

The 450,000-square-foot research center, which is essentially complete, is where the Henrico County-based company will develop products to ensure its survival as consumption of cigarettes -- its bread-and-butter product for more than a century -- slowly declines.

"The growth of this company is going to be driven by the development of innovative new products . . . and the work that we are doing to reduce the harm related to all of our tobacco products," company spokesman David Sylvia said yesterday during a tour of parts of the building for news media representatives. "The goal of building this facility here was to bring all of those people together so they could do that work in one place."

The people who are, or will be, working at the site include scientists, engineers, physicians and support staff, among others.

The building, attached to a 900-space parking deck by a skywalk, includes a fitness center, a cafeteria, a company store, a coffee shop and lots of common areas to stretch your legs and meet with colleagues. The company did not allow photography inside the building.

The center's first floor has a 50-seat lecture hall and a library designed mainly for electronic research, though its shelves include volumes on chemistry, neuroscience and cancer treatment and epidemiology, among others.

The design of the center and its amenities are aimed at fostering collaboration, creativity and innovative thought, Philip Morris officials said. The specifics of their work remains closely guarded. The company has provided little information about the kind of research it is doing, or the products it hopes to develop.

The new center will help Philip Morris USA accelerate its research, said Richard Solana, the company's senior vice president for research and technology. He would not comment on the company's research budget or when it might launch products.

"I am more confident that there will be a product on the market that reduces the harm from smoking," Solana said when asked how close the company is to introducing a reduced-risk cigarette. "Maybe it will be a cigarette, but maybe it will be something else."

Whatever the outcome, it is likely to face skepticism from public health groups and the wider scientific community.

"I think it's good that they are doing the research," said Thomas Eissenberg, an associate professor and behavioral pharmacologist at Virginia Commonwealth University whose research focuses on addictive substances such as tobacco.

"When they release research, they don't need to just release results, but we need to know every detail of the methods," he said. "That way the results could be replicated by nonindustry researchers."

Cigarette smoking causes cancer, heart disease and other illnesses, leading to more than 400,000 premature deaths a year in the United States. Tobacco companies have made numerous attempts at the so-called Holy Grail of the industry -- a cigarette that could be less harmful to health -- but those products have never gained consumer acceptance.

For that reason, some of the researchers working at the center are "sensory scientists," who study how consumers react to products. The building's third floor includes rooms for focus groups and consumer testing of products, using volunteers that company spokesman Bill Phelps said are older than 21 and tobacco users.

About one-third of the building's space is laboratories. Research also will focus on the health effects of tobacco products, but Phelps said there are no plans to have research subjects stay at the center overnight. The center also has the capability to do tests on rodents.

Philip Morris has recently entered the smokeless tobacco market, which is growing in the United States. It is test-marketing a traditional moist snuff product and a type of pouch tobacco called snus. That could suggest the company's research is focused on new smokeless products, but Solana said it has a "balanced portfolio of research" between cigarettes and smokeless products.

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com

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