HERCULES, CA – October 16, 2006 – Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (AMEX: BIO and BIOb), a multinational manufacturer and distributor of life science research and clinical diagnostics products, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Blackhawk BioSystems, Inc., a San Ramon, California, based manufacturer of quality control products for use in laboratories that perform infectious disease testing procedures. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Founded in 1989, Blackhawk BioSystems is a privately held company whose product offerings include the complete line of VIROTROL® independent quality assurance reagents that are used along with commercially available testing procedures for hepatitis, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and a variety of other test procedures such as assays for congenital diseases, Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), H.pylori, and Lyme. With the acquisition of Blackhawk BioSystems infectious disease controls, Bio-Rad will be able to offer a broader line of quality control products for the clinical laboratory. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand our quality control product offerings with Blackhawk BioSystems infectious disease controls,” said Norman Schwartz, Bio-Rad President and CEO. “Customers for these new controls will soon have the support of Bio-Rad’s unique quality assurance software system, which offers customers online access to quality control data provided by thousands of laboratories worldwide for peer group interlaboratory comparison.”