About the shorts, do you think those holding broker warrants would have shorted some shares by now to lock in some profit from facilitating the recent offering?
For example if one had 100,000 broker warrants at a $4 strike and you shorted, say, 50,000@$3 that’s around $0.15M in cash. If the trial fails that’s all you get. But if the trial succeeds the short position becomes worth negative $50,000 (the warrants cover losses above $4) and the remaining warrants would be worth aproximately 50,000 x new share price - strike (so anywhere from $0.4M to $1.5M).
If true, and if this explains most recent shorting, then we won’t see much of a decline in outstanding short interest until after topline.