By Matthew Willett

Since its credit card-financed founding in 1997, Active Pass has raised C$8 million, moving the company closer to clinical trials for its lead products that attack transport mechanisms between cells.

The company's most advanced product, for Alzheimer's disease, is designed to stop beta-amyloid transfer in the brain.

And after its recently completed third round of private financing, President and CEO Peter Reiner said the company is positioned to take several programs well into preclinical development.

"Our first two rounds were small, C$1.5 million each," he said. "They were really to get the thing in shape, but this is the first round to get the company off the ground in a substantial way."

The Vancouver, British Columbia company last week garnered C$5 million (US$3.32 million) through some of Canada's most recognized investment funds, Reiner said.

Chief among recent investors, he said, was Ventures West, the largest venture capitalist in western Canada. Ventures West Senior Vice President Nancy Harrison got a seat on the company's board following the financing.

Other existing investors participating in this round included the Working Opportunity Fund, Cascadia Pacific and the Navigator Canadian Technology Fund. First-time investors included the Future Fund Capital Corp., BioFuture Fund Capital Corp. and unnamed individual investors.

Reiner called the financing encouraging, largely because of the faith of highly respected Canadian seed capital investors. "It's been awesome to have such a very good group of investors for a small Canadian company," he said.

Reiner said the funding should carry the company well into next year, and will finance research, development and staffing.

"There is going to be some substantial recruitment in the next year, particularly to bring in people with experience in pharmaceuticals," he said. "We're also looking at high-level executive positions in the coming year, so there will be a few senior management positions and at least a couple of positions in our ongoing recruitment of scientists."

Active Pass's major product is a treatment for Alzheimer's disease that takes advantage of a mechanism largely overlooked by the industry, Reiner said.

"We're among the many groups working on regulating beta-amyloids in the brain," he said. "The difference is that most other groups are trying to prevent the production or aggregation of beta-amyloids."

Beta-amyloid accumulation is widely held to be one of the causes of Alzheimer's disease. Active Pass's technology is designed to prevent the transport of beta-amyloids through cell membranes.

The company's platform includes molecular pumps transporting molecules that regulate ATP-binding cassette transporters, or ABC transporters. They are implicated in many disease states, the company said.

"Targeting the release from the membrane as a therapy strategy led us to the strategy of going after the ABC transporters," Reiner said. "We've now expanded, and one of the things we're using the funds for is looking for other applications outside Alzheimer's."

Other applications, still in early preclinical investigation, should follow the company's lead product to the clinic, which is expected in the last half of 2001, Reiner said.