I'm not sure there is overt manipulation going on.
My sense is that profit taking is driving excessive panic selling. This will burn itself out and the price will quickly recover to something like $1.20- $1.30 going into the trading halt which could come as early as the last week of February.
Coming out of the halt, assuming a positive outcome of the trial, I'd expect $2.00 to be breached in the first hour of trading.
MBP Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held