▲ CEO Bongchul Shin

The World Health Organization estimated around 7 million people are dying from direct smoking and 12 million people from indirect smoking. We all know that smoking harms our body. 

Smoking a cigarette arouses around 4,000 kinds of toxic substances of which 20 are carcinogenic including TSNAs and of which 60 in tar contains heavy metal substances. The advent of vape, e-cegarette, in a way is an alternative to these harmfulness.

The principal ingredient of cigarette is nicotine. But against the conception of many, nicotine does not cause cancer as it can be used for medicinal ingredient though it causes addiction. Nicotine reaches to the brain in 7 seconds and stimulates release of dopamine and adrenaline. Dopamine makes us feel good and adrenaline increases memory ability and concentration. 

Nextera

Nextera is a South Korean company that succeeded mass produce of medical-useable RS nicotine. RS Nicotine is made of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen molecules and it has 99.9% purity. Medical nicotine has been used since 1940 as a cure for nervous disorder or brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Because it has high production cost, it was exclusively used for medical purposes. In other words, Nextera’s success of mass produce of RS Nicotine is but praiseworthy.

Nextera commissioned American Next Generation Labs, University of California, Irvine for mass produce, succeeded PharmaNic(RS-Nicotine) and obtained a patent for mass produce technique in South Korea. The company recently launched its vape brand ‘vapium’ made of RS Nicotine with no other harmful or chemical substances. 

“It means it contains no carcinogenic substances and impurities but only pure RS Nicotine. Therefore, it should rather be called electric liquid than electric cigarette” says Bongchul Shin, CEO of Nextera.

The only drawback, however, is that it gives less addiction and hit if we want to call it a drawback.

“That’s why we yet succeeded development of RS/S-Nicotine that gives the equal hit as a cigarette by separating the S” says Shin.

RS/S-Nicotine is registered as a new chemical substance to the National Institute of Environmental Research and passed safety check through multiple tests on harmfulness. A test carried out in the UK also found no harmful substances such as formaldehyde emission, acetaldehyde emission, carbonyl emission, and diacetyl emission. The vapium is, for the first time as an e-cigarette in the nation, registered to the Korea Federation of SMEs for 100 million won ($78,709) product liability insurance. 

Bespoke Design

You can either buy a choice of vapes you want or make it your way at one of the vapium stores. Add a flavor from hundreds of flavors to your RS-Nicotine vapium. If you want something sweet, you can do so with sweeter. If you want something fresh, you can do so with peppermint. 

All vapes sold at the stores are attached with a QR code on which you can transparently see the substances, harmful test results and insurance policies. 

You can find one of the vapium stores in Bupyeong Incheon, Hongdae Seoul, Dongseongro Daegu, Seomyeon Busan, Gimhae and Ansan. The flagship store in Bupyeong drew a surprising 50 million won ($39,354) sales within 3 months of opening manly from people in 20s and 30s. 

For those who want to give a try, Nextera introduced the disposable vape ‘EZ : UZ’ which can last up to 400 times or a month. It contains 3mg nicotine which is higher than similar products and you can choose a flavor from tobacco, peach, lemon or green grape. 

Global Market Trend

The UK government is spreading a stop smoking campaign by giving out free vapes. The Royal Society of Medicine reported that ENDS (Electronic Nicotine Delivery System) is twice effective for quitting smoking than NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) and also 95% less harmful than cigarette. The EU also runs TPD (Tobacco Products Directive) to verify safety of e-cigarette. 

“Regretfully, South Korea seems to be still lingering on the harmful cigarette and no systems or regulations for safety of e-cigarette are found yet. As far as I know, many liquids imported are from cheap and poor quality tobacco nicotine from China or a mix of fake synthetic nicotines. The reason I launched vapium is part of my effort to make the market transparent through opening to the public the ingredients, test results and insurance policies. It is notable that while vapes share around 25 to 40% markets overseas, only 6% are vapes in South Korea. In other words, the e-cigarette market in South Korea has a potential to grow if backed up by the benefit of it alongside good regulations” says Shin. 

Global tobacco companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco have announced that they would shift their business to e-cigarette from traditional cigarette within 10 to 15 years. <PowerKorea>