The all-cash deal values Athenahealth at $135 per share, representing a premium of 12.2 percent to the stock's closing price on Friday. Reuters reported on Sunday that Athena health had agreed to a takeover. Athenahealth had been under pressure from Elliott to sell itself since the hedge fund acquired a stake in the company last year. In May Elliott made an unsolicited offer of $160 per share to buy Athenahealth. The Watertown, Massachusetts-based company, whose cloud-based software is used to track revenue from patients, physicians and hospitals, has cut jobs and overhauled its management over the past year as part of a restructuring effort. Former General Electric (GE.N) Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt currently serves as its chairman. Once the deal is complete, Athenahealth will merge with Virence Health, the former GE Healthcare unit that Veritas acquired earlier this year, the companies said in a joint statement. A deal fro Athenahealth represents the largest deal to date for Elliott's private equity arm, Evergreen.

 He also wants to improve the company's bottom line by cutting costs and driving up cash flow-largely by offloading older medicines so it can focus on more lucrative opportunities. It's no surprise, then, that AZ has just struck its third deal since Oct. 30, handing off the U.S. rights to Synagis, a drug to prevent infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), to Sweden's Sobi. AstraZeneca is picking up $1 billion in cash and $500,000 in shares up front, as well as an 8% ownership stake in Sobi. The total value of the deal, including deferred and contingency payments, is $2.3 billion, making it AZ's largest divestiture in the last five years, noted Jefferies, which was the financial adviser to Sobi on the deal. The transaction will allow "AstraZeneca to allocate resources more effectively," Soriot said in a statement. Specifically, it will free up the company to focus on a next-generation, single-dose RSV drug called MEDI8897, which it is developing with Sanofi. Sobi can participate in payments AZ receives from U.S. sales of MEDI8897 under Tuesday's deal. AstraZeneca has been on a tear in the past few weeks when it comes to cash-generating transactions. On Oct. 30, it sold certain rights to Nexium and Vimovo to Grünenthal for $922 million. Then it formed a pact with Covis Pharma, scooping up $350 million in a sale of rights to respiratory drugs Alvesco, Omnaris and Zetonna. AZ had previously signed agreements with Recordati, Aspen, Pfizer and Ironwood.