MEI Pharma Acquires $100M in Litecoin as Treasury Asset

MEI Pharma (ticker MEIP), a pharmaceutical company listed on Nasdaq, has made headlines by purchasing 929,548 Litecoin (LTC) tokens for $100 million. This makes MEI the first U.S.-listed company to designate Litecoin as a primary reserve asset for its treasury. The tokens were bought at an average price of $107.58 between July 30 and August 4. With current market prices hovering around $124, the value of MEI's Litecoin treasury has surged to approximately $115 million. Litecoin ranks as the 24th largest cryptocurrency, boasting a market capitalization of about $9.5 billion, as reported by The Block. This acquisition was fully financed through a private placement that raised $100 million last month, where Litecoin's creator Charlie Lee and the crypto trading firm GSR were key investors. Charlie Lee has joined MEI's board of directors, succeeding Taheer Datoo, while GSR has been appointed as MEI's treasury asset manager. Other investors in this round include the Litecoin Foundation, ParaFi, Hivemind, Primitive, RLH Capital, and Delta Blockchain. MEI Pharma's focus on Litecoin aligns with its strategy of maintaining a treasury asset that has demonstrated a record of operational reliability over the past 13 years, featuring low transaction fees and fast settlement times. The firm highlighted Litecoin's integration with platforms like BitPay, PayPal, and Robinhood as further validation of its utility. Looking ahead, MEI may expand its strategy to involve Litecoin mining and additional initiatives. Meanwhile, the company is actively pursuing its drug development efforts, including voruciclib, an experimental cancer treatment, with plans to enhance research and development endeavors in the forthcoming months. Titan Partners Group, a subdivision of American Capital Partners, acted as the exclusive placement agent for this transaction, with legal counsel provided by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP for MEI and Lucosky Brookman LLP for the placement agent. MEI Pharma joins a growing trend of public firms integrating cryptocurrency into their treasury strategies. While firms like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) have led with Bitcoin, others are also investing in Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, SUI, Toncoin, and more. Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media source dedicated to news, research, and data dissemination. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block, which also invests in various crypto enterprises. The Block maintains its independence to provide objective and relevant information about the crypto sector.