ANN ARBOR – HandyLab, a University of Michigan spinout company founded in 2000, announced Friday it has been acquired by a New Jersey medical technology company. Terms were not disclosed, however.

The deal with Becton, Dickinson & Co. is expected to close by the first quarter of 2010. Earlier this year, HandyLab had signed a deal with BD to develop and distribute the company’s medical diagnostic equipment used to quickly test DNA for infectious diseases.

“HandyLab has developed and commercialized a flexible automated platform for performing molecular diagnostics which is an ideal complement to our molecular diagnostics offerings,” BD President Vincent Forlenza said in a statement.

HandyLab has been one of Michigan’s most successful fundraisers, raising more than $46 million this decade. The company’s fourth round of fundraising in the summer of 2008 generated $19.2 million alone.

Participating in these rounds has been Ann Arbor-based Ardesta LLC (cofounded by Rick Snyder, a Republican candidate for the Michigan gubernatorial nomination), EDF Ventures, Arboretum Ventures, and the University of Michigan Wolverine Venture Fund, which participated in four rounds of financing in HandyLab.

“Today’s news marks another exciting event for the Wolverine Venture

Fund,” said Tom Kinnear, Executive Director of the Samuel Zell & Robert H.

Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and Wolverine Venture Fund

Director. “The fund was developed to provide students with a real-world

educational experience and over the years, our students have been part of

the full spectrum of the investment process.”

HandyLab benefited in several ways from student expertise and resources at the time of the company’s inception. In addition to the Wolverine Venture Fund

investment, HandyLab also hosted a team of MBAs as part of a business

development class project, and participated in the Marcel Gani Internship

Program. Jeffrey S. Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of

HandyLab, is a MBA ’92 graduate of the University of Michigan Ross School

of Business and a member of the Zell Lurie Institute Advisory Board.

For more information, click on HandyLab.Com

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