Morrisville-based agtech firm Pyxus, e-cig makers team up in bid for FDA approval

MORRISVILLE – Amid a vamping crackdown nationwide, a Morrisville-based agtech firm is teaming up with a handful of e-cigarette manufacturers to bolster each other’s application before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Pyxus announced two separate agreements with e-cig companies, Turning Point Brands and Smoore, to collaborate on their respective Premarket Tobacco Product Applications (PMTA).

Starting this week under a new e-cigarette policy, manufacturers that wish to market any vape products, including flavored e-cigarettes or e-liquids, must submit an application to the FDA for premarket authorization of their products.

Flavored vaping products are now banned in the market nationwide. Menthol and tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, however, will be allowed to remain on the market. It comes after parents, teachers and health advocates have increasingly called for a crackdown on flavors, arguing that they are overwhelmingly to blame for the explosion in underage vaping by U.S. teens.

“We have been preparing for regulation of the industry since the establishment of our first e-liquid joint venture in 2014,” Pieter Sikkel, Pyxus’ president, chief executive officer told WRAL TechWire. “By working in conjunction with other reputable, like-minded partners, we’re able to do so more efficiently while strengthening each company’s respective PMTA submissions.”

Formerly known as Alliance One, Pyxus is an agricultural company involved in the provision of products such as tobacco, e-liquids in vaporizers and hemp-derived cannabidiol products. Pyxus doesn’t manufacture e-cigarettes or vaporizers but they do manufacture e-liquids and hemp-derived CBD.

Under its agreement with Turning Point and Smoore, it has agreed to share costs, as well as certain science-based research and testing data. Additionally, Turning Point has signed a supply agreement for Pyxus’ house brands of e-liquids.

“We are deepening relationships with reputable, like-minded partners, while ensuring that we all are able to develop the highest quality products possible,” Sikkel said.

He believes that PMTA will act as a “global benchmark.”

“Therefore our brands will be better positioned as trusted products in global markets.”