IBM has been trying to find buyers for the Watson Health business for more than a year. And it was seeking a sale price of about $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.

In IBM's fourth quarter, cognitive applications revenue, which includes Watson Health, came to $1.5 billion, a decrease of 2% year over year.

International Business Machines Corp. IBM -0.30% agreed to sell the data and analytics assets from its Watson Health business to investment firm Francisco Partners, the companies said Friday.

According to reports, IBM made a series of acquisitions to build Watson Health to the tune of $4 billion. Those acquisitions included Merge Healthcare, Phytel, Truven Health Analytics and Explorys.