India has ruled out relaxation of a ban on e-cigarettes that would have allowed heat-not-burn tobacco products, dealing a blow to a lengthy private lobbying campaign by Philip Morris International for New Delhi to permit such devices.

India banned e-cigarettes, including heated tobacco products, in 2019. With more than 100 billion cigarettes sold annually, it is the seventh-largest cigarette market by volume, where tobacco kills more than a million people a year.

The world’s most valuable tobacco firm, Philip Morris had hoped India could be a key market for its heated tobacco device, IQOS, which the company says is less harmful to health than smoking.