Abbot Laboratories announced Friday that it will buy Chile's CFR Pharmaceuticals SA for $2.9 billion. The deal will more than double Abbot's branded generic drugs business in the growing Latin American market.

The deal is Abbot's first deal since it spun off its successful rheumatoid arthitis drug into a new company, AbbVie Inc., last year. Lately, health mergers have skyrocketed.

With its generic drugs business, Abbot plans to focus on about 14 or 15 fast-growing countries in emerging markets.

"Not all geographies are alike, and some are not particular focuses for us," Chief Executive Officer Miles White said during a conference call with investors. White said the company was still looking at other transactions.

Most drug companies in Latin America are small, family-owned businesses. Abbot saw the acquistion of CFR as a big opportunity to get into the Latin American market because CFR is one of the few bigger companies in the region.

Mexican Grupo Casa Saba's Chilean health retail arm, Farmacias Ahumada was just sold last month to Britain's Alliance Boots for $638 million.

The Weinstein family, the holding company that founded CFR in the 1920s will deliver 73 perecent of the company to Abbot. A tender offer will be conducted for the remaining shares.

Latin American analysts were suprised by the sale of CFR; they did not know the company would be sold.

"This is very surprising," said Claudia Cavada, senior analyst with Banchile Inversiones in Santiago. "It's a very good price compared to yesterday's closing price."

Abbot will pay 34.65 cents per share or about 190.54 Chilean pesos. On Thursday CFR shares closed at 124.51 pesos.

With the purchase of CFR, Abbot will add about $900 million in sales in 2015. The company expects to close the deal in the third quarter.

CFR has 7,000 employees in Latin America while Abbot has 69,000 employees worldwide.

Abbot sales in developed countries have slowed or remained steady so the company wanted to enter emerging and developing countries to increase sales.

"We are pleased to join with Abbott to enhance CFR's leadership across Latin America," CFR's chief executive officer, Alejandro Weinstein, said in a press release.