Can bioceramic technology change the future of nicotine delivery - or is it just another marketing buzzword?
In this video, we take a closer look at the science behind bioceramic materials and their emerging role in modern nicotine products. We examine how these materials work, what manufacturers claim they can achieve, and whether those claims are supported by current evidence.
Transcription:
00:11 - 01:05
[Gizelle Baker]
All right. So just to keep us going and to make sure we get through all the videos, we're going to go to Anna Franzen's presentation by Thomas. And I think one of the things that's interesting is when we think about nicotine pouches, we think of them as one big category, like they're all the same product. And the only differences are the amount of nicotine and maybe the different types of flavors that are available. But what we get to see in here is looking at different formulations of the product and how the delivery of nicotine might change by what you put in that pouch and so that it might not just be one big category of products that what you put in, the nicotine you put in, and the flavors are the only distinguishing features, but how they deliver the nicotine. So we get to explore that next question in the nicotine pouch. But before we go, I think Thomas wanted to make a couple words.
01:06 - 01:51
[Tomas Hammargren]
Just a little bit of context. Regards from Anna, the real one, Anna too. She's homesick, unfortunately, in Uppsala. We're a Swedish company, independent. We are working with the Not with cellulose, but the new material. We got a lot of feedback from early consumers, testers, wow, good kick and good liver. So it was very important for us to actually look at how it's delivered in a proper PK, blood uptake study. So we're coming from a pharma background, so it's pretty common to actually make sure we're talking about the right things. So that's what you will see on the video.
01:52 - 05:43
[Video]
Why might bioceramic be the future of nicotine delivery? The next advance in this category will come from improving how nicotine is formulated, released, and absorbed. That brings the carrier material into focus, and it is here that bioceramic offers a different approach. Introducing Ceratec, a bioceramic nicotine pouch formulation based on calcium sulfate granules, rather than cellulose, In this system, nicotine is incorporated into the calcium sulfate matrix during the setting process, producing a homogeneous distribution within the granules. The loaded granules are then mixed with flavor, pH regulator, and other standard excipients before pouching. We investigated Ceratec's comparative performance versus cellulose in a randomized, controlled, crossover pharmacokinetic study published in Discover Medicine in July 2025. Twelve healthy, adult daily nicotine users were enrolled. The study compared three products, Ceratec 3 mg, Ceratec 6 mg, and a leading cellulose, 6 mg, as the cellulose-based control. Primary measurements included plasma nicotine pharmacokinetics. Secondary measurements included pulse rate nicotine extraction from the pouch after use and adverse reactions. The central finding is that the Ceratec formulations showed faster early nicotine uptake than the cellulose-based comparator, particularly within the first five minutes. For the dose-normalized comparison between Ceratec 3 mg and Cellulose 6 mg, the study reports that the maximum plasma concentration in the first 5 minutes was significantly higher for Ceratec. Time to maximum concentration was also significantly faster for Ceratec. In the comparison between Ceratec 6 mg and Cellulose 6 mg, Time to maximum concentration was again significantly faster for Ceratec, so the main distinction is not necessarily higher total exposure in every comparison. It is earlier delivery. The second finding highlights nicotine extraction from the pouch. A larger fraction of nicotine was extracted from the Ceratec pouches than from the cellulose-based control, And importantly, urge to use showed promising results. Questionnaire-based subjective effects indicated reduced nicotine craving following Ceratec use. Ceratec 6 mg significantly reduced craving across all participants, suggesting Ceratec is more effective at satisfying nicotine cravings while maintaining lower abuse liability than cigarettes. Taken together, the data suggest that calcium sulfate as a carrier material produces a distinct delivery profile compared with cellulose. That profile is characterized by faster early uptake, faster time to peak, and greater extraction efficiency, with the study indicating this is likely due to a higher pH environment for nicotine in the Ceratec formulation and differences in dissolution behavior compared with nicotine bitartrate in the cellulose-based product, which is best understood as a formulation-driven pharmacokinetic difference. So the value of Ceratec is clear. Accelerated delivery with greater efficiency and a reduced craving for more nicotine. That is what makes bioceramics such a promising platform for the future of nicotine delivery. and a credible formulation approach for further work in next generation of oral nicotine delivery.
05:44 - 05:51
[Gizelle Baker]
So with that, I'm going to hand it back to Anna, number two, to see if she has any comments on this.
05:53 - 06:37
[Tomas Hammargren]
Yes. I mean, the... With about 10 years, 11 years old now, we started to use this material for active ingredients, pharma products. And about five, six years, I was a part of that, suggesting that maybe we can test a little bit on nicotine. And so that was the start of this journey. and can granulate it and actually use it in pouches. It takes some time to reach a product. It's now on the market in several places and a lot of work ongoing. I leave it up to you. Any questions? If I know, Anna is on standby with an email if I can't answer.
06:38 - 07:27
[Gizelle Baker]
I'm going to open the questions, and then we're going to hand it to the floor. So I have a question for you, and maybe this should be going directly to Anna, but I'm going to try with you anyhow. So if we think about it, in the outside world, people seem to think that whatever content of nicotine you put into the pouch is what people are exposed to, and that number is the only number people care about. So a 10-mig pouch is equal to 10 cigarettes. You get these wild comparisons. But what I'm wondering from watching this video is what is actually the most important piece? Is it the actual amount delivered? Is it the speed that it delivers it? Is it the consistency of the delivery? Like what is the best measure to understand which of these pouches might be the ones that are more satisfying to a consumer?
07:27 - 07:59
[Tomas Hammargren]
I need help from other ANAs here, ANA3, ANA2. But for me, as I've been in the field for quite a number of years, speed is important. That you actually can feel, OK, you have the air. You know that if you put something under your mouth, signals will be sent to your brain, preparing you for a reaction. But that you actually feel something, speed of delivery is important. I don't know if you want to comment.
08:00 - 08:46
[Lindsay Reese]
I always want to comment. I mean, I agree with that, but I wouldn't say that faster always means better. It really depends on the individual who's using the pouch. So when I first tried a pouch, I hated it. I think I lasted about 10 seconds before I got the hiccups. And then it was only... You've got to start the clock when you put it in. Two minutes. But no, you know, the pouch is designed to be used for a while, longer than a cigarette. So you want it to last 10 to 30 minutes. You don't want to have to take it out because you're getting an adverse effect from it. So like for me, I started out with a 1.5 milligram pouch. So... It differs for everyone.
08:48 - 09:14
[Tomas Hammargren]
If I can expand on the question, I mean, theoretically, if you look at the blood uptake data, it might be possible to deliver more with less. We're moving into a regulatory environment where we can see, we have seen nicting caps coming. So it could be an interesting movement.
09:15 - 09:17
[Gizelle Baker]
OK, from the floor, I see a question from the very back.
09:21 - 09:42
[Norbert Schmidt]
consumer. I wonder, nicotine delivery is important, but also flavor delivery. How does the different material support more or less constant flavor delivery?
09:46 - 10:29
[Tomas Hammargren]
It's not identical to cellulose, so we have a flavor department doing a great job. There's no limit in type of flavors we can have, what we can do, but you have to work with the material as well. It's not major differences, but there are some smaller differences to cellulose-based products. And when you talk about the length of flavor delivery, we hear positive things from consumers. It's difficult to measure. It's very difficult to have a scientific measurement on that.
10:32 - 11:24
[Attendee]
Yeah? I would like to continue with an answer to our colleague. The mode of action, it is through the taste termination into the mouth and the smell termination into the nasal mucosa. So that if you change the physical material of delivery between Ceratec and the other one, the classical one, in term of flavoring, it doesn't matter. Thank you.
11:26 - 11:29
[Gizelle Baker]
Do we have another question up front before we move on to the next video?
11:30 - 12:21
[Attendee]
Yeah, I had a question just circling back to this sort of lead time of nicotine or the speed of uptake. In the earlier days of snooze, we also, in the beginning of this category, we were actually not looking at a fast kick. We were looking at delaying it. So if you look at British American, they add alginate, for instance, in the recipe to slow the dissolution of nicotine. But during this study, do you see a shift in consumers, or have you monitored a shift in consumers In the early days, we always said a consumer would use a snooze pouch or a nicotine pouch about 30 minutes. Have you done any studies that suggest that nicotine pouches are used at a faster or higher frequency, higher churn, if you know what I mean?
12:22 - 12:39
[Tomas Hammargren]
Yeah. No, it wasn't covered in this study. I mean, it was really set to 30 minutes. So I would actually believe that we're using quite a lot of hype data. So what do you say? What do we know about the delivery?
12:39 - 13:07
[Lindsay Reese]
Well, I can't comment on the specifics of your product. But we are starting to ask more questions about how people are using their products. There's very few studies, maybe just one published study, on how long people actually use their pouches. So we're trying to get information from more markets, asking people how long they think they typically use their pouch. But I think this sort of data will be very important moving forward from the real world.