Fast and furious innovations

We just got back from a literally whirlwind trip to Japan over the weekend. It was an exhilarating experience to watch – for the first time – up close and personal the 2025 Formula-1 Grand Prix (GP) held at the Suzuka Circuit located south of Nagoya City. The F1 Grand Prix is one of the most highly regulated sports in the world to ensure the highest safety for participants and audience as well. It is regarded as the premiere class of competition of four-wheeled racing cars.

A Dutch, Max Verstappen, won the Japanese Grand Prix last Sunday. With split second speed, he went past the reigning world champion McLaren pair of F1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to claim a fourth consecutive win at the Suzuka Circuit.

I am not a fan or sports enthusiast of this supersonic speed, high-octane car-racing contest. But as a journalist, however, learning new fields is not something to let pass. Thus, there was no hesitation to accept and join this rare opportunity to be able to experience first-hand this international car racing sports event.

I was with my former media colleague Dave Gomez, communications director of PMFTC Inc., the local affiliate of Philip Morris International (PMI), at the GP. Let me just call him Dave out of our years of friendship in and out of our association in media.

Dave fondly recalls that PMI first launched IQOS in 2014 in Nagoya City. Thus, Dave dubbed this trip as a “sentimental” journey for PMI because Nagoya is the birthplace of its IQOS products. The Japanese people are among the biggest cigarette smokers. To date, Japan is the biggest market for PMI’s innovation-produced IQOS heated tobacco products (HTP). HTPs are transition devices to quit smoking without the ill effects of “cold turkey” syndrome, or nicotine withdrawal. The number of smokers who have quit smoking in Japan alone has reached close to eight million.

“Hopefully, the experience in Japan is replicated around the world, including the Philippines where IQOS has been around for five years now,” he added.

Echoing the PMI corporate mantra: “We support commonsense regulation that dissuades people from starting to smoke and encourages cessation (of smoking habits).”

According to him, PMI now operates six global markets where more than 75 percent of net revenues are generated from “smoke-free” products such as IQOS. Over $14-billion cumulative investments behind smoke-free products have been made since 2008.

Describing itself as a “company powered by science,” PMI cited: “Today, innovation has enabled us to separate nicotine from cigarette smoke.” According to PMI, it has “disrupted its business” to commercialize “smoke-free” products that are scientifically tested as less harmful, “with the aim of completely replacing cigarettes as quickly as possible.”

With this in mind, 99 percent of the total shipment volume of PMI products is covered by youth access prevention programs in indirect retail channels. Also, 99 percent of contracted farmers supplying tobacco to PMI are making a living with almost zero prevalence of child labor. Another feather in its cap: PMI’s manufacturing facilities have been certified as 61 percent carbon-neutral.

But the most important gauge of success as far as PMI is concerned is the foreseeable achievement of their corporate goal to get rid of cigarettes in its “smoke-free” vision.

To borrow their own words, PMI “is the only company within the traditional international tobacco industry to have committed to phasing out cigarettes, encouraging those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch to better alternatives” such as to its fashionable Iluma IQOS accessory product.

Himself once a chain-cigarette smoker, Dave is a walking model for PMI’s IQOS. For so many years at PMI, it opened a lot of doors for Dave here and abroad. He and his family lived for almost three years in Switzerland and two years and a half in Hong Kong in his 23 years of working at PMI.

We worked together at The STAR in 1995 as a tandem in the coverage of Malacañang Palace during the term of the late president Fidel V. Ramos. Dave is one of the original employees of The STAR when the newspaper founded by the late Betty Go-Belmonte first hit the streets after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.

Fortunately for having been closely associated with Dave through these years, he knows only too well the quality of journalism work we did in media. So I am very grateful for the PMI conferences in science and technology innovation held abroad that Dave tapped me to join. Last year, PMI held an International Techno-vation Conference at its research and development (R & D) facility in Neuchatel, Switzerland.

Sure, these are media junkets. But such did not color our understanding and appreciation of the broader perspectives of PMI’s innovations to get rid of cancer-causing cigarettes.

The corporate drive of PMI towards innovation has seemingly infected Dave’s own personality. Currently, Dave has evolved to being a team consultant on his favorite sports of basketball for his alma mater, the University of the East Red Warriors, and as head coach of the Dasmariñas Cavite Saints in the “junior” division of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League. He is also the head coach of Saints basketball in the Sinag Liga Asya.

From former media practitioner to government information officer to becoming corporate communications executive, we might see Dave soon as coach in the professional basketball league.

“You’re PMI innovation personified,” I kidded Dave.

Levity aside, PMI itself reiterated its commitment to evolving its corporate business portfolio for the long term to include products outside the tobacco and nicotine sector.

“We’re preparing for product rollouts beyond 2026 in the pharmaceutical, medical and wellness segments, focusing on the long-term potential of emerging opportunities,” PMI announced.

From PMI’s long-term plans, it will continue to pursue the path of innovation in turning around the so-called “sin” products to its fast and furious drive to a “smoke-free” future for the world.