This article originally appeared on Forbes.com. 

The sheer scale of Asia’s developing economies is turning them into some of the hottest markets for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

China is already the second-largest economy in the world, and many are forecasting that Asia’s healthcare expenditures will grow two to three times faster than the global average.

These gains are drawing multinationals eager to fill gaps through acquisitions, but success in this complex region isn’t a given. Consider Sanofi’s $602 million acquisition of Indian vaccine-maker Shantha Biotechnics. The deal failed to live up to analysts’ forecasts after manufacturing troubles wiped out $340 million in sales. The World Health Organization canceled its contract for five childhood vaccines after white sediment was found in some vials.

Despite troubled deals, recent Bain & Company analysis of corporate deal activity over the last 11 years has found that M&A as a growth strategy has been quite successful both within and outside of healthcare, and the most skillful acquirers increase shareholder value more than those that don’t.

It’s clear that M&A will be crucial to expansion in Asia. To win, many companies will need to challenge their preconceived notions about deal making and integration and take a long-term view of potential benefits. Here’s what top healthcare companies can do to build a lasting presence in Asia:

Craft an M&A portfolio. Rather than make large acquisitions, leading companies are creating something akin to a mutual fund of assets. They buy a combination of assets across countries, sectors and risk profiles, and develop a balanced mix of M&A, joint ventures and partnerships. Like a mutual fund, portfolio returns should trump the returns of individual assets.

Those that embrace this approach find themselves outpacing the competition as they gain solid footing in new markets. When Philips purchased Shenzhen Goldway Industrial in 2008, the acquisition allowed Philips to become the patient monitoring market leader in only three years.

Keep investments diverse. The strongest M&A portfolios hold a variety of asset classes and include multiple bets across countries, sectors and steps in the value chain. When sizing up potential investments, acquirers must consider a country’s potential for scale, growth, profitability and influence on external markets. They should also evaluate a country’s viability—everything from the government’s openness to multinationals to such infrastructure issues as the number of hospital beds per capita. Balancing potential and viability, China and India surface as the clear leaders among Asia-Pacific markets.

Take the long view. The challenges of doing business in emerging markets are well known. The lack of financial transparency makes due diligence difficult. Valuations are often inflated. Integration is complicated. Talent is scarce, and cultural gaps persist across countries.

Winning healthcare companies adjust for high valuations by focusing on long-term value and accepting longer paybacks. They consider the ways a deal might improve the company’s market position, and whether they can gain an early-mover advantage in a region. These companies also look for the longer-term opportunities to export out of the region, back into the developed markets.

Understand a market’s nuances. High volatility from sociopolitical uncertainty and rapid policy changes, fragmented regional markets and local competition, and justified concerns about quality bring uncertainty into every transaction. And then there are the inevitable cultural gaps. Companies acquiring in the region must anticipate these issues and manage them proactively.

When PerkinElmer conducted due diligence before its purchase of Sym-Bio, the company relied heavily on research performed by professional firms and internal experts. In addition to the business model and company financials, it assessed the management, intellectual property, environmental and legal risks of pursuing the deal. The company also reached out to competitors, customers and suppliers.

Integrate with caution. Before a deal closes, a company might take immediate steps to keep talent and key personnel with incentive plans and promotions. But when the purchase is complete, a low-and-slow approach to integration can be critical to a deal’s success. In the case of Philips, the company only integrated with Shenzhen Goldway where it mattered most during the first three years—in areas such as distributor management—and then performed a full integration later.

Develop a repeatable M&A model. Frequent acquirers hone a set of skills and capabilities that they can apply to repeatedly launch and negotiate successful deals. The best companies build a dedicated core M&A team with rich transactional and integration experience. They create a new playbook for integration that includes compliance and quality standards and is distinct from the one they use in developed markets.

Asia holds some of the world’s biggest opportunities for growth in healthcare, but making inroads there will challenge the strategies that multinationals have long relied on to succeed in developed markets. With some long-term thinking, patient integration and smart deal making, a new crop of global healthcare leaders will soon emerge.

Matthew Collier is a Bain & Company partner based in Shanghai and a member of the firm’s Global Healthcare practice. Grace Shieh is a Bain principal based in Shanghai.