Well, if the RBL research grant includes clinical trials then they are doing a terrible job on the PR front by couching it inside the much less exciting and broad "in vivo" term. I think it is a safe bet that the company would have said "clinical trials" if that was the meaning they intended to convey.
I agree that further preclinical RBL work, free or paid, is ultimately low impact since we are planning to run our own COVID clinical trial anyway.