Two entrepreneurs who launched one of the UK’s first electronic cigarette brands have partnered with a global supplier of pharmaceutical nicotine to build at Liverpool, the UK, Europe’s largest outsourced manufacturing facility for nicotine products, according to a press note issued by Citypress.
David Newns and Chris Lord, who sold their electronic cigarette business C N creative – owner of the Intellicig brand – to British American Tobacco in 2012, have joined forces with Germany-based Contraf-Nicotex-Tobacco GmbH (CNT) to form Nerudia Limited. The business, which is investing £11m into the new facility, will focus on the development, production, testing and regulatory compliance of nicotine products specifically for the electronic cigarette market, supplying brand owners rather than consumers.
The new venture will occupy an 80,000 sq ft facility that was previously purpose built by a pharmaceutical company for the manufacture of inhaled medicines.
The business, which will be fully operational by January, is currently recruiting 30 people and expects to create up to 150 jobs in its first three years of operation.
It has secured its first major manufacturing contract and is said to be in advanced discussions with several other e-cigarette brand suppliers.
Demand for electronic cigarettes, also known as vaporisers, has grown rapidly since their launch just over a decade ago. The global market is now estimated to be worth £1.8 billion, and is growing at 70 percent per year.
“A new EU directive will come into force in 2016 creating a new and welcome regulated environment for e-cigarettes,” said David Newns, CEO of Nerudia. “Many of the requirements of the new regulation surround the ‘quality’ of e-cigarettes and their contents. The knowledge that we have gained over the past six years of working with the UK and other regulators enables us to offer a unique service to help companies through the process of new regulation.
“Our new facility will offer the expanding market a fully-outsourced, best-in-class nicotine product manufacturing service providing e-liquids and capsule filling, thus enabling e-cigarette companies to focus on their sales and marketing in this rapidly growing sector.”
Newns described the growth of the vaporiser market as having been a “modern phenomenon”; but he said that this growth had come with an increasing focus on key areas of product innovation quality and reliability. “This is a fast-moving landscape and few brands can build the capabilities in-house to keep pace,” he said. “Nerudia has been created to offer the market the very latest product innovation, manufacturing technology, testing facilities and compliance procedures, enabling brands to concentrate on what they do best.”
Meanwhile, Torsten Siemann, the managing director of CNT described Nerudia as an exciting opportunity for CNT that would allow it to expand its integrated supply chain further. “In addition to the supply of ultrapure nicotine made in Switzerland, we will be able to support our customers throughout Europe in their quest to comply with the impending EU regulations that will be in force from 2016,” he said. “With Nerudia we will be in the position to offer our tobacco as well as our pharmaceutical customers access to world class innovation and manufacturing expertise in this new and fast moving category.”
CNT is the world’s largest supplier of pharmaceutical grade nicotine and is a global operating company involved in growing, sourcing, developing, processing, extracting and producing a range of agriculturally originated products. Headquartered in Heilbronn, Germany, it has operations in India, South America and Africa. It supplies some of the world’s largest tobacco and pharmaceutical manufacturers with raw materials and processed products.
