IBM continues its health data-related deals with the acquisition of Truven Health Analytics, a provider of healthcare data and analytics, for $2.6 billion. IBM said on Thursday that Truven would bring more than 8,500 clients, including U.S. federal and state government agencies, to its IBM Watson Health portfolio. The coimpany expects to close the deal later this year.

IBM launched its Watson Health unit in April. The cloud-based system stores health-related data representing around 300 million patient lives. The Truven data will be integrated with Watson's data, used to identify health cost savings, improve healthcare outcomes, fight fraud and make operations more efficient.