Avexa Ltd shares tumbled by almost 78 percent or up to 2.7 cents on Monday as the drug company announced that it is ending Apricitabine (ATC), its lead HIV program, amidst the resignation of its chief executive Julian Chick who is set to leave by end of May.

The company said it would shelve ATC since no global pharmaceutical company is coming in as partner for the program, as it added that Avexa at this point is reviewing "all remaining programs and intends to consider suitable merger, acquisition, in-licensing opportunities and other corporate initiatives."

Avexa also said that it is looking "to reduce costs and will continue to actively preserve capital, including taking further action to significantly reduce overhead in combination with the strategic review process."

The company revealed that ATC has actually achieved clinical milestones and transitioned to excellent safety and efficacy stage but the compound's apparent success failed to land a commercial deal with a global drug company, thus rendering it economically unviable.

Avexa admitted that all possible global licensing negotiations for ATC failed to produce good results so far and the company is considering talks with smaller or regional entities that could be interested in securing licensing transactions for ATC.

The company reminded though that "this type of transaction being executed remains uncertain and if completed would be unlikely to generate a meaningful return on the capital invested in the ATC program to date."

Avexa said that possible partners complained that investments to be made just to secure regulatory approval for ATC in key markets are too prohibitive for prospective investors.

Potential partners are turned off too by ATC's very high dosage requirements when used in combination with already approved HIV drugs while its level of efficacy cannot be determined when used with some new active drugs on the market.

And as if adding more woes to Avexa's existing troubles, the company has received a request for a general meeting to discuss a resolution that seeks the ouster from the board of company chairman Nathan Drona.