BC Advantage Funds Portfolio Companies Completes NASDAQ IPO

Advantage Life Sciences Venture Fund NAV increases $9.21 to $30.43

Vancouver, March 14, 2005 - BC Advantage Funds (VCC) Ltd. ("Advantage") is pleased to announce that its Life Science Venture Fund portfolio company, Aspreva Pharmaceuticals Corporation ("Aspreva"), recently completed its initial public offering on the NASDAQ and the TSX stock exchanges, raising Cdn. $112 million through the issuance of 8.2 million of its shares at $13.68 per share. On its first day of trading, Aspreva's stock rose $4.32, giving Aspreva a market capitalization of $594 million.

The Advantage Life Sciences Venture Fund (formerly Qwest Emerging Biotech Fund) was the first institutional investor in Aspreva, investing $125,000 of the $1.7 million seed round, at a pre-money valuation of $4.9 million. The Fund applied its Mentor model by appointing Tazdin Esmail, an Advantage Mentor and well-respected life sciences entrepreneur, as its representative on the Board of Directors of Aspreva to provide the Board with additional pharmaceutical expertise. The Life Sciences Venture Fund subsequently exercised its right to invest a further $100,000 into Aspreva in a $69 million private equity financing, at a pre-money valuation of $79 million.

"We are proud of our involvement in the early development of Aspreva", stated Frank Holler, CEO of Advantage. "We believe that the success of our Life Sciences Venture Fund investment in Aspreva validates Advantage's strategy of maximizing the return to our investors by investing in exciting young BC life science and technology companies and accelerating their development by applying the expertise of the our pool of Mentors."

At Aspreva's current market capitalization, the $225,000 invested by the Advantage Life Sciences Venture Fund is now worth more than $3.6 million, representing a return to the Advantage Life Sciences Fund investors of more than 16 times their initial investment.

About Aspreva

Based in Victoria, B.C., Aspreva Pharmaceuticals is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing and commercializing new indications for approved drugs and drug candidates for underserved patient populations. Aspreva's strategy, which it calls "indication partnering", is to collaborate with pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to pursue new indication approvals which lie beyond these collaborators' strategic focus. Aspreva's asset partnering program allows its partners to maintain core brand focus while extending the benefits of their medicines to a broader patient population. In October 2003, Aspreva and Hoffmann-La Roche announced that Aspreva had obtained exclusive worldwide rights (excluding Japan) to develop and market CellCept in autoimmune disease applications. Aspreva is undertaking the development of CellCept in a number of autoimmune diseases, and has established operations in Canada, Europe and the US, employing people in various positions of clinical development and commercialization.

About Advantage

Advantage is an early-stage life sciences and technology fund that offers anyone in BC the opportunity to participate in returns from some of our Province's most promising young technology and life science companies and to receive a 30% refundable tax credit from the BC Government. Advantage was co-founded by Dr. Don Rix, Chairman of the Board; Frank Holler, CEO and Chairman of the Investment Committee; Jim Heppell, President and Life Sciences Fund Manager; Dr. Basil Peters, Technology Fund Manager; and David Raffa, COO and Investment Manager.

For more information about Advantage, please review our prospectus, visit our website, access our one page introductory brochure, or contact our Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Ray Matthews at ray@bcadvantagefunds.com or 604.818.7778.

This press release does not constitute an offering of securities. The prospectus of Advantage dated November 14, 2003 contains important information pertaining to an investment in Advantage, including management fees, expenses and commissions associated with Advantage and risk factors. To obtain further information and a copy of the Advantage prospectus, please contact a registered investment advisor, or visit SEDAR or the BC Advantage Funds website.

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