What is IQOS?
Real tobacco, real progress
Key reasons to switch
Discover the science
Care and privileges
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Mainland and Balearic Islands
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What is IQOS?
What is IQOS?
Real tobacco, real progress
Key reasons to switch
Discover the science

“It’s satisfying to look back and see how one small step changed your whole life.”
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Care and privileges
Mainland and Balearic Islands
Mainland and Balearic Islands

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The science and vision behind IQOS
IQOS is the combination between science, technology and vision.
Science behind heated tobacco
We believe in science. We believe it can change the lives of millions of smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke. To this effect, we recruited scientists to work on an important idea: developing less harmful products that cigarette smokers can switch to if they don’t quit. Hundreds of scientists and engineers at PMI’s global Research and Development centres in Switzerland and Singapore have developed and evaluated IQOS, an innovative electronic device that heats and not burns tobacco. It produces a tobacco vapour that delivers tobacco taste and nicotine.


Tested to the highest standards
IQOS has gone through robust scientific assessments, including, to-date, 18 non-clinical and 10 clinical studies involving thousands of participants.
IQOS emits on average 95% lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes.* Do you want to find out why we can conclude this? Learn more about some of the key pieces of scientific evidence on IQOS.
Based on scientific studies conducted with manufacturer's heated tobacco units designed for IQOS.

Why heating is better
Technology – the world revolves around it. Over the years, it has radically changed our lives for the better. The way we work, the way we communicate, the way we travel. By combining science and technology is how we developed a better alternative to continued smoking.
IQOS heats tobacco instead of burning it for a simple reason: the burning of tobacco emits high amounts of harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide.
IQOS ILUMA SMARTCORE INDUCTION™ technology and IQOS HeatControl™ technology prevent tobacco from burning, which means they significantly reduce the number and level of harmful chemicals emitted compared to cigarette smoke.
Heating technology
Cigarettes burn tobacco, reaching high temperatures, and producing ash, tar, and smoke with high number and levels of harmful chemicals. Cigarette smoke is a complex mixture of over 6000 chemical substances, around 100 of which have been linked to smoking-related diseases by public health authorities.
IQOS ILUMA SMARTCORE INDUCTION SYSTEM™ technology and IQOS HeatControl™ technology heat tobacco to a lower temperature, ensuring that combustion does not occur. Because there is no combustion, IQOS does not produce smoke. It generates a tobacco vapour that emits on average 95% lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes.*
Cigarettes produce tar, IQOS doesn't
Tar is the residue from smoke after a cigarette has burned. IQOS does not produce tar because it heats tobacco instead of burning it. It generates an aerosol residue that is fundamentally different from tar and consists of significantly lower levels of harmful chemicals.*


IQOS tobacco vapour is less harmful than cigarette smoke. To demonstrate this, we conducted a comprehensive assessment program that included 10 clinical studies on aerosol chemistry (as well as data from 18 non-clinical studies), and involved thousands of participants in the US, Japan, UK and Poland. Evidence demonstrates that switching completely to IQOS, while not risk-free, presents less risk of harm compared with continuing to smoke cigarettes.
IQOS emits less harmful chemicals than cigarettes
Cigarettes burn tobacco, which produces high amounts of carbon monoxide. IQOS doesn’t burn tobacco, producing on average 98% less carbon monoxide (CO) and significantly lower levels of other harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes.*
Important information: This does not mean a 98% reduction in risk. IQOS is not risk-free, and delivers nicotine which is addictive.
*Source: We measured the levels of certain harmful chemicals prioritised for reporting by renowned public health organisations, and these are reduced on average by 95% compared to the smoke of a cigarette (nicotine excluded).
Based on scientific studies conducted with manufacturer's heated tobacco units designed for IQOS.
Switching to IQOS
Over 16,7 million adult smokers in the world have stopped burning tobacco and started heating it with IQOS*. Discover more about our scientific assessment programme.
