Health charities and anti-smoking campaigners have voiced concern at the prospect of the asthma inhaler maker Vectura succumbing to a £1bn bid from tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI), as the improved offer triggered a rare quickfire auction. Marlboro manufacturer PMI, which advocates a smoke-free future but makes about 75% of its revenue by selling cigarettes, submitted an improved offer over the weekend, outbidding the private equity group Carlyle. A five-day auction between the two suitors will begin on Wednesday if final bids are not forthcoming by 5pm on Tuesday, regulators at the UK Takeover Panel announced. Shares in Vectura gained 5% to reach 172p on Monday, valuing the company based in Chippenham, Wiltshire, at more than £1bn, as investors responded to the prospect of a continued tug-of-war. The raised bid from PMI at 165p a share values Vectura at £1.02bn, compared with the 155p offer on the table from Carlyle, which values the firm’s equity at £928m. Vectura’s board had previously recommended that investors accept the offer from Carlyle but withdrew that recommendation on Monday. However, several health charities, which have previously warned that a deal could “legitimise” PMI playing a role in health debates, said they were disturbed by the prospect of it winning the auction and warned it could negatively affect Vectura’s future work. Malcolm Clark, senior cancer prevention policy manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “It’s clear there’s more at stake in the outcome of this deal than the share price. It’s unethical for big tobacco to be allowed to profit from treating diseases made far more prevalent because of its products.” Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: “Every year in the UK, 90,000 people die from conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which are linked to smoking. “It is unacceptable that companies that have profited from the devastation smoking causes could then make even more money providing treatments for the illnesses they have caused.” Vectura is a specialist in inhaled medicines, including devices for the treatment of asthma, a condition that can be worsened by smoking. Woolnough and Clark both warned that the company could be blocked from taking part in research programmes with universities if it succumbs to PMI’s advances. Clark said governments and health agencies would be forced to “limit their interactions” with the company. Dr Nick Hopkinson, clinical lead for COPD at the Royal Brompton hospital in west London and chair of anti-smoking group Ash, said: “If Vectura is taken over by PMI it becomes part of the tobacco industry, so scientists who work for it may no longer be able to collaborate with their peers. “Once you work for the tobacco industry, that’s you and your reputation. It stays with you.” He stressed that PMI’s ability to submit a blockbuster bid for Vectura also indicated it was not contributing enough to pay for the impact of smoking on society. PMI has made much of its vision for a “smoke-free world”, underpinned by a strategy to help cigarette smokers wean themselves off smoking and switch to its alternative products such as e-cigarettes and vapes, which it says are less harmful. The company’s chief executive, Jacek Olczak, said last month that smoking could be banned in the UK within 10 years, adding that the company could “see the world without cigarettes … and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone”. But the company’s financial results indicate that it has a long way to go before its purported ambitions are realised. PMI still makes three-quarters of its $28bn (£20bn) in annual revenue from “combustible” products that involve the burning of tobacco. It shipped 628.5bn cigarettes last year, although that marked an acceleration of its reduction in cigarette sales, which were, 707bn in 2019, 740bn in 2018 and 762bn in 2017. If it were to reduce cigarette sales by the same volume every year as it did in 2020, it would cease to sell them altogether some time in 2029.