agreed lots of potential scenarios could come into play....

agreed lots of potential scenarios could come into play. Remember however this a biological that we are dealing with and there will be a premium (compared to small molecule drugs) for any pre-clinical deal.

If you have a look at the latest and previous company presentations - pre-clinical deals for biologics are attracting $250 US million upwards.

There are also strategic manœuvreings that come into play. As a plan B scenario the company need to (and need to be seen by the market) that they have the funds to move straight into a phase I clinical trial. Although not to everyones liking the $10 million capital raise at 3.5c in Nov 2021 has cemented this in mind place. As an aside - imagine raiding $10 million in todays market??

Big pharma will as you have quite rightly pointed out willl need to make a call - "do we enter into a pre-clinical deal/exlcusvity deal or do we wait and see the safety data coming from a phase I trial and pay more?".

Either way, the company have positioned themselves well to allow for some competitive tension to be played out in regard to both scenarios.

Rest assured however that if a pre-clinical deal is struck, this will be well north of $250 million US - if recent historical data for pre-clinical biologic/antibody deals are anything to go by.