Novartis will also buy Hexal AG of Germany as part of the $5.6 billion deal.

Bringing Hexal, Eon and Sandoz together would result in $200 million in annual cost savings after three years, Novartis said.

Hexal Australia is a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, formed in 1995 with Hexal AG Germany.

Clobutinol is a cough suppressant distributed by Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novartis's Hexal (Sandoz), Stada and possibly other companies.

The European center of SANDOZ and HEXAL are located in the industrial zone.

Tramadol HEXAL (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary)

Hexal, headquartered near Munich, is the second-largest generic drug manufacturer in Germany, which is the second-largest market in the world for generics behind the United States.

Hexal's founders, the brothers Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann, own a majority stake in Eon, which is publicly traded and is based in Laurelton, N.Y.

In 2005, Sandoz expanded significantly though the acquisition of Hexal, one of Germany's leading generic drug companies, and Eon Labs, a fast-growing United States generic pharmaceutical company.

Novartis's generics business will edge out Teva, which is based in Netanya, Israel, and has $4.8 billion in sales, by just a small amount when the Hexal and Eon deals close, Mr. Makov noted.

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, said on Monday that it planned to buy Hexal of Germany and its affiliate Eon Labs of New York for $8.4 billion in cash, creating the world's biggest maker of generic drugs.

In February, the company announced the $8.4 billion purchase of Hexal of Germany and Eon Labs of the United States, a deal that, once completed in the third quarter, will make Novartis the world's largest generic drug company.

Hexal, which had sales of 1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) last year, would bring Novartis more than 120 new products, among them painkillers and cholesterol drugs, while Eon would bring a low-cost copy of a popular antidepressant and an extensive pipeline of new generic medicines.