The Australian-based pharmaceutical company, Propanc Biopharma, has just announced that it will endeavour to create a cryptocurrency treasury worth up to $100 million to attempt to secure long-term funding for the development of its cancer drug development programs, as well as to build its overall business model for the future.
This marks one of the first times that a biotech firm has delved into the world of cryptocurrency in quite this way and changes the narrative that has been developing for many years, whereby traditional industries have used crypto and digital asset capital to support innovation in other businesses. It appears that Propanc Biopharma is taking its investments into its own hands and removing the need for these third-party firms to secure their crypto deals for them.
In recent years, there has been a growing trend of businesses using cryptocurrencies and digital assets to raise capital and manage their assets accordingly. This is thanks to the volatile nature of cryptocurrency, along with its potential despite the risk needed to benefit from profits. This wider adoption of cryptocurrencies by these kinds of firms and companies comes at a time when Bitcoin itself is innovating and adapting to a rapidly changing market. Despite its market dominance, Bitcoin is being aided in technological innovation, which is enhancing the overall experience for its investors through the likes of Bitcoin Hyper. This is a layer-2 solution to Bitcoin, which makes Bitcoin more usable and better at transacting. These layer-2 solutions are aiding accessibility to crypto and Bitcoin, in particular, for other industries to use the blossoming crypto market for investment and capital growth.
For Propanc Biopharma specifically, it was announced by Cointelegraph on the 11th November that the biotech firm had commenced an investment agreement with Hexstone Capital, an investment firm that specialises in crypto, to establish a whole new treasury for future-proofing the company. The agreement is said to be worth up to $100 million, which would be made up of convertible preferred shares in a private placement structure. There are plans for an initial $1 to be used immediately for investments, with the rest of the money being invested accordingly over the next 12 months.
Propanc has made this decision to try and raise more funds and balance its sheets in an increasingly difficult financial market. They would use these funds to advance clinical trials on their leading anticancer drug, PRP. Propanc has developed PRP (Proenzyme Therapy) to destroy cancer stem cells in the body, which are thought to be the leading cause of tumours and subsequent metastasis. Indeed, ongoing research has suggested that this type of enzymic cancer treatment has provided large proportions of trial cases with a significantly longer life expectancy than their initial prognosis, offering people up to 3 months extra in a lot of cases.
Some biotech firms have taken to crypto investments as a rapid and explosive way to try and gain additional funds in the past. Indeed, this year has seen a bit of a trend of this happening. But it seems Propanc is in this for the long haul and has genuine intentions of not making this a quick cash grab and instead building the company on this model. James Nathanielsz, Chief Exec of Propanc, has stated that the establishment of this treasury will be a ‘turning point that can simultaneously strengthen the company’s financial stability and anticancer platform development’.