China’s largest e-cigarette brand Relx to study health effects of vaping amid regulatory crackdowns
- Relx’s China’s largest e-cigarette brand, has a new bioscience lab in Shenzhen to study the health effects of vaping
- In the past year, China has banned online sales of e-cigarettes on e-commerce sites as well as on short video and live-streaming platforms
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“E-cigarettes are sometimes viewed with suspicion because we have incomplete knowledge,” said Relx co-founder and head of R&D and supply chain Wen Yilong.
The company unveiled a new bioscience laboratory on Thursday to study the health effects of vaping. The lab in Shenzhen will investigate the short- and long-term behavioural impacts of e-cigarettes compared to traditional cigarettes using 3D printed models of human lungs, Relx said. It will also examine the impact of Relx products on animal cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous systems by testing them on mice.
“The Relx bioscience lab’s mission is to explore the unknown,” Wen said at a press conference on Thursday. “We want to collect evidence through a scientific approach and strive to prove the potential for e-cigarettes to be less harmful, and in doing so, provide users with the option to choose an alternative.”
The move comes after recent regulatory crackdowns on online e-cigarette sales in China, which is the world’s largest market for smokers with 300 million smokers – or almost a third of the global total – according to the WHO.