The Startup Ecosystem: Why Nicotine Innovation Is Moving to the Margins
The regulatory barriers that keep independent vaping companies out of the market are creating an underground innovation ecosystem—startups developing products that can't reach consumers through legal channels. Innovation hasn't stopped. It's gone underground.
A startup in Shenzhen develops a vaping device with advanced temperature control, biodegradable components, and a recyclable battery. It can't afford the PMTA process. It sells to markets with less restrictive regulation—or to the gray market. **The regulatory barriers that protect the legal market from 'unsafe' products are also protecting the legal market from innovation. The startups that would develop the next generation of reduced-risk products can't afford to reach consumers. Innovation continues—in the gray market, in other countries, in the spaces regulation can't reach.**
