Altria swaps its Juul stake for rights to a theoretical heated tobacco system

Altria has confirmed that it has swapped its 35% stake in Juul Labs for heated tobacco intellectual property rights, ending an investment which plummeted in value from $12.8bn to only $250m in just over four years. So far, Juul has never launched a heat-not-burn (HnB) product, despite years of talks on working to develop such a device.

Altria said it had “exchanged its entire minority economic investment in Juul Labs for a non-exclusive, irrevocable global licence to certain of Juul’s heated tobacco intellectual property”.