Thanks for pulling the transcript and providing a great explaination. Your description could very well be the case and I'm sure legal counsel (and Elon) did/would advise NP to not use those 'secured funding' words as BD previously noted.

While NP did not use the words 'quiet period' this is the portion of the transcript I am referring to.

Quote:

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14:43 about HIV that we said in our annual
14:45 shareholder meeting with potential
14:47 licensing to launch leronlimab
14:50 licensing out the cells of the only map
14:52 for us exclusively at our natural
14:56 holders meaning i discussed the
14:57 potential for commercialization part
14:59 partners and discussions regarding
15:02 strategy strategic partners i can say
15:05 now that we are far enough along in
15:09 these discussions that i can no longer
15:11 comment today i will not give an inch of
15:15 free ride to anyone in regards to
15:17 potential
15:18 partnership due to cited as current
15:20 share price we believe we are very close
15:23 to major success and our shareholders
15:25 deserve full value and in my humble
15:28 opinion we are set to potentially
15:31 realize these values that is all we have
15:34 to say about this at this time the next

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Maybe this isn't the same thing as real world situations you know/reference (and I agree with you about IPOs, etc.) but wiki notes that major partnership announcements fall under these guidelines also and could be what you were discussing with the "no shop" clause (I know wiki isn't a real source, but most I've found there is accurate).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_period

I don't want to over think it and obviously it isn't a big deal as NP just did a PI interview, but I do expect a deal to be announced relatively soon regardless whether the company PRs and interviews every day until then.