By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Pouch growth: Zanoprima forecasts nicotine pouches will be among the fastest-growing tobacco harm reduction categories through 2030
• Supply focus: CEO Anand Ashok argued that high-quality nicotine supply is one of three critical pillars needed to advance tobacco harm reduction
• Synthetic push: The company says synthetic nicotine can offer traceability, environmental benefits, and nicotine free from TSNAs

Synthetic nicotine manufacturer Zanoprima Lifesciences says the future growth of tobacco harm reduction will depend not only on science and regulation but also on the industry’s ability to deliver high-quality nicotine ingredients at scale.

Speaking at the Next Generation Nicotine Delivery conference in Miami, Anand Ashok, CEO of Zanoprima Lifesciences, outlined what he described as three “gates” that must be opened to accelerate tobacco harm reduction: science, policy, and supply.

“To truly unlock the potential of tobacco harm reduction, we need to open three gates: clinical science, risk-proportionate policy, and high-quality supply,” Ashok said.

While much of the industry’s attention has focused on regulatory pathways and public health debates, Ashok argued that the quality of the nicotine supply will become increasingly important as demand for smoke-free products grows.

According to Zanoprima’s presentation, the global tobacco harm reduction market could reach $200 billion by 2030, with heated tobacco products projected to grow 39% annually and nicotine pouches 29% annually from 2026 to 2030.

“Nicotine pouches are relatively new categories, so to expect it to grow at a high rate,” Ashok said. “Even the more mature categories, such as vapes, are still seeing strong growth within this space.”

Ashok traced Zanoprima’s roots to the nicotine replacement therapy sector, noting that founder Ashok Narasimhan helped introduce some of India’s earliest nicotine replacement therapy products before launching the company in 2014. The company began commercial-scale production of synthetic nicotine in 2021 and now supplies customers ranging from startups to major tobacco companies.

The company’s flagship product is SyNic, a synthetic nicotine platform that Zanoprima says delivers nicotine with greater than 99.9% purity, less than 0.3% R-isomer content, and no detectable tobacco-specific nitrosamines.

“Our bread and butter is our synthetic nicotine,” Ashok said. “This allows us to deliver a high-purity nicotine with extremely low R-isomer, which has been a bit of a plague for the synthetic nicotine space. This allows us to also deliver truly TSNA-free nicotine.”

Ashok also argued that environmental considerations are increasingly relevant as demand for nicotine products expands globally. “As the requirement is going up, growing more and more tobacco purely for extraction is potentially quite damaging environmentally,” he said. “If we can help to bridge some of that gap by using synthetic nicotine, I believe that would be beneficial for the wider market.”

The presentation highlighted Zanoprima’s nicotine pouch technology, which uses a calcium silicate carrier instead of sodium-based systems. “A lot of ex-smokers may have heart issues and other health conditions, so we look to deliver a truly sodium-free nicotine pouch,” Ashok said.

The company says the platform can also be extended to other oral nicotine formats, including gums and lozenges.

During a question-and-answer session, Dr. William Jackson, Zanoprima’s head of technical and manufacturing, argued that concerns about tobacco-specific nitrosamines in nicotine pouches should be considered in context. “There was a paper published last year in Tobacco Control which examined about 40 pouches, and yes, there were some very, very low levels of TSNAs detected there,” Jackson said.

“In theory, the is, any pouch is good. So that’s my take on it. Get rid of cigarettes, take pouches.”

Looking ahead, Ashok called for risk-proportionate regulation, including differential taxation based on product risk profiles and continued investment in research. “We need to communicate the truth,” Ashok said. “We need to ensure that the policy also supports what we need to be doing.”