You seem to be making an assumption that large investors are necessarily smarter than small investors. They're not smarter, they're just able to absorb losses better and are willing to take a smaller upside.

Non-retail investors like their investments de-risked. The risk they see here is potentially large dilution if there is no other financing.

Whether the risk is balanced at this point depends on where the share price is likely to go on announcement of a commercialization deal. Potential 100% dilution with no deal means a 100% discount to the price per share. If a deal is announced and the share price stays below 100% upside (.62 at current share price) then better to wait until a deal is announced.

That approach may mean they miss out on an even larger upside, but any analyst would be worried they'd be on the unemployment line if a large dilution occured. For large individual investors they may not even know about us. Richard Uihlein this is directed at you.

Smart money at a big firm (fairly rare) would at least take a small flyer (.5 to 1 million shares) with the ability to average down if a large dilution occurs. Covering the potential upside with an eye to any downside is the best strategy.

As a retail investor, only being accountable to oneself, you can assume more risk. If you have time on your hands and are knowledgeable you can even do better due diligence than the analysts. If you go back and look at analyst's predictions and research on biopharmas from previous years it makes you wonder how they've held their jobs.