PHILADELPHIA, PA, March 14, 2006 - Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (AMEX: BIO and BIOb) and Infometrix today announced plans to release the KnowItAll® Informatics System, Metabolomics Edition, integrating Infometrix' renowned Pirouette® chemometrics technology with Bio-Rad's award-winning KnowItAll® platform, databases and NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) tools. The KnowItAll® Informatics System, Metabolomics Edition is the world's first end-to-end informatics and chemometrics system for metabolomics research.

"The KnowItAll® Metabolomics Edition leverages Bio-Rad's rich history of spectroscopic and cheminformatics technologies with our recent successes in the ADME/Tox market," said Gregory M. Banik, Ph.D., Bio-Rad's Informatics Division General Manager. "We look forward to continued development of state-of-the-art tools to facilitate research in metabolomics and metabonomics."

In addition to the Infometrix tools for multivariate data analysis, the KnowItAll® Metabolomics Edition incorporates Bio-Rad's new patent-pending Overlap Density Heatmap technology for comparative spectral visualization. The new product also includes a database of NMR spectra of common metabolites with Internet links to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, a prominent bioinformatics resource of metabolic pathways. The integration of these technologies will allow researchers performing metabolic profiling studies to easily manage and analyze data in their search for relevant biomarkers, which can be used to distinguish normal versus abnormal biological systems and response to drug treatment.

"The combination of Infometrix' Pirouette® chemometrics technology with Bio-Rad's KnowItAll® Informatics System offers important solutions for drug discovery researchers and for the future of metabolomics," said Brian Rohrback, Ph.D., President of Infometrix.

Metabolomics was named one of the top ten emerging technology areas by MIT Technology Review in May 2005. It was also named "the new up and coming - omics" in the May 2004 issue of Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Metabolomics blends statistical analysis with analytical chemistry techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS) and chromatography. Predicted to become the center of drug discovery and development, metabolomics may lead to earlier, faster and more accurate diagnosis of many diseases.

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About ADME/Tox and Metabolomics

Metabolomics, the study of metabolic changes in response to perturbations such as drug or disease, is related to the "M" and "T" of ADME/Tox. Within drug discovery, most failed compounds have problems associated with their Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, or Toxicity (ADME/Tox) profile. Either actual or virtual in silico ADME/Tox screening can be used to evaluate the ADME/Tox profile of compounds in order to eliminate poor drug candidates early in the drug discovery process.

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Bio-Rad's Informatics Division

Bio-Rad's Informatics Division (http://www.informatics.bio-rad.com) specializes in state-of-the-art software and database solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical industries. Bio-Rad is the leading publisher of fully verified spectral databases, cheminformatics, spectroscopy software and decision support systems for drug discovery. The company's award-winning KnowItAll® Informatics System offers a fully integrated environment with flexible, expandable software and database solutions for spectroscopy, cheminformatics, in silico ADME/Tox prediction and lead optimization.

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (http://www.bio-rad.com) is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of life science research products and clinical diagnostics. Based in Hercules, California, Bio-Rad serves more than 70,000 research and industry customers worldwide through a network of more than 30 wholly owned subsidiary offices.

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About Infometrix

Infometrix, Inc. (http://www.infometrix.com) is a leading developer of software products in the field of chemometrics, employing pattern recognition and modeling techniques for the analysis of multivariate data sets in chemistry and biotechnology. The corporate research and development efforts are directed toward software that will be completely integrated with instrumentation to provide better solutions to complex problems in chemistry, engineering and other sciences.

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Various statements made within this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" for purposes of the Securities and Exchange Commission's "safe harbor" provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements contained herein involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from the Company's expectations.

For more information contact:
Deborah Kernan, Marketing Communications Manager
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.
Phone: +1 215 349 7366
E-mail: deborah_kernan@bio-rad.com