Three acquisition deals that have been recently announced, and have a combined total potential value of US$23.4 B, suggest that the tail-end of September 2006 may be remembered as one of the defining periods in the history of the European pharmaceutical industry. All three acquisitions, each involving at least one mid-cap German pharmaceutical company, gave further weight to the argument that mid-sized pharmas are no longer sustainable in the face of global pharma's superior financial and strategic power. The deals analysed in this feature are Merck & Co.'s acquisition of Serono, Nycomed's acquisition of ALTANA Pharma and UCB's acquisition of Schwarz Pharma.