(Reuters) – Juul Labs said on Wednesday it was seeking U.S. authorization for a new e-cigarette that has age-verification capabilities and prevents the use of unauthorized refill cartridges.
The vaporizer, which has a unique Pod ID chip to prevent the use of counterfeit cartridges and an app to restrict underage access, is already on sale in Britain after its launch in 2021 as JUUL2 System.
In its latest premarket tobacco product application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration submitted on Tuesday, Juul Labs said it was seeking to sell tobacco-flavored pods at a nicotine concentration of less than 2%.
The e-cigarette maker has been in a tussle with the FDA to get its existing products approved after their sale was briefly banned last year following thousands of lawsuits that accused Juul of fueling a teen vaping epidemic.
The company, in which Marlboro maker Altria was a former investor, would pursue additional filings to expand its e-cigarette alternatives, while pursuing an appeal of the FDA’s stayed decision, a company spokesperson told Reuters.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Anil D’Silva)