Who: Abbott Laboratories
With: Piramal
Where: India

Deal size: $3.7 billion

Details: Big drugmakers like Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer expressed interest, but it was Abbott that captured the domestic unit of India's Piramal Healthcare. Abbott paid $2.12 billion up front and will make payments of $400 million annually for the next four years, beginning in 2011.

India is one of the world's fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets. Pharma sales are expected to hit $8 billion in 2010 and double by 2015. With the purchase, Abbott captures about seven percent of India drug market and gives it the industry's largest sales force in that country. It expects revenues there to grow by about 20 percent a year to more than $2.5 billion by 2020.

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