All very good questions. The market cap doesn't matter directly...

All very good questions.

The market cap doesn't matter directly in negotiations except it provides an alternative to a JV deal (i.e. you will do a big raise and run the phase 3 trials yourself rather than take a bad JV deal). The problem is that even if BIT has a MC of $200 million again they can't go out at raise $100 million on their own from the market. Any attempt to do a big raise would fail because the shareholders BIT has (small retailers) just don't have $100 million in cash to give. Any potential JV partner knows this too (they can look at the T20 list just like us).

The end result is BIT has a very weak hand to play even if they were holding the cure for HIV (which they aren't). Bluffing only works when your opponent can't see your cards.