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The British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline said Monday it would pay $2.9 billion to buy Stiefel Laboratories, a maker of dermatology products. It is the latest of a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceuticals industry.

GlaxoSmithKline will also assume $400 million in debt and has agreed to pay up to $300 million more based on performance, bringing the total cost of the deal to up to $3.6 billion.

Glaxo is the world’s second-biggest drug maker by revenue after Pfizer. Last Thursday, Glaxo and Pfizer said they would combine their businesses that make H.I.V. drugs to create a new company.

Stiefel, the world’s biggest independent dermatology company, makes medications like acne treatments and other skin creams, lotions and washes. The company, based in Coral Gables, Fla., is privately held.

The combined business would have an 8 percent share of the prescription dermatology market globally, the companies said.

Charles Stiefel will remain chief executive and chairman of Stiefel until the deal closes, then will lead the unit for Glaxo.

Glaxo has been moving to replace falling sales of older drugs facing generic competition by diversifying. The company has said it will lose about $5 billion worth of sales as demand falls for treatments like its antidepressant Wellbutrin and its diabetes drug Avandia, which was linked to possible heart attack risk.

The deal, set to close in the third quarter, is expected to bring pretax cost savings of up to $240 million annually by 2012.

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