R&D budget: $1.89B (€1.38B)
Change over 08: +12.9%
Income spent on R&D: 21.9%

Back in 2008, Daiichi Sankyo became an early and aggressive believer in the future of emerging markets when it acquired control of India's Ranbaxy. That deal not only gave the Japanese pharma company access to Ranbaxy's low-cost R&D infrastructure, it also provided the company an inside position to mount its assault on one of the globe's most attractive emerging markets.

For Daiichi, the acquisition laid the foundation for a projected 60 percent growth spurt over the following three years. But after running through two CEOs and dealing with an enormous headache triggered by the FDA's unhappiness with Ranbaxy's manufacturing abilities, the deal hasn't gone quite as smoothly as Daiichi had hoped.

The same year that Daiichi acquired Ranbaxy, the pharma company also acquired U3 Pharma for $234 million and put down $60 million in a pricey development pact with ArQule, gaining licensing rights to a cancer compound and access to the biotech's discovery platform. That pact seems to be going well, as the two companies expanded their oncology discovery partnership a little more than a month ago.