A Raleigh company that sells a blood test to measure patients' risk for heart disease is reviving plans for an initial public offering of stock.

LipoScience wants to raise $86.25 million in an IPO, the company disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The company first filed IPO plans in 2002, but scrapped them after failing to attract enough interest on Wall Street. This time, LipoScience officials are hoping that having a few more years of steady revenue growth will help sell their story to investors. They're also counting on renewed interest in IPOs.

Founded in 1994 based on research at N.C. State University, LipoScience's main product is the NMR LipoProfile, a diagnostic test that checks the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.

Proposed federal cuts to Medicaid could cost North Carolina thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in business activity, warns a report by Families USA.

The nonpartisan health and consumer advocacy group is pushing Washington lawmakers to avoid slashing Medicaid as they consider ways to reduce the federal budget deficit.

“This is exactly the wrong time for Congress to cut a program that boosts the economy while also providing a boost to individuals and families facing hard economic times," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, in a prepared statement.

A 5 percent in federal funding for Medicaid spending this year would cost North Carolina $431.7 million in federal Medicaid money, and put at risk about $942 million in business activity and 8,890 jobs, the group reports.

WakeMed has started a short advertising campaign to bolster support for its $750 million offer to buy rival hospital Rex Healthcare.

The print and radio ads, which will run for a week or so, are designed to answer some questions about why WakeMed made the offer, said spokeswoman Debbie Laughery.

"One way for us to get our side of the story out there is to put it in ads," she added. "We received questions and there are some misunderstandings."

The ads contend that combining Rex with WakeMed won't disrupt health care or limit choice, and will create a stronger, unified health system that's better able to focus on adding new services rather than duplicating existing care.

The UNC Health Care System has owned Rex since 2000. UNC officials have said they aren't interested in sale, but on Monday, the UNC Health board announced it has formed a committee to review WakeMed's offer over the next several weeks.

The UNC Health Care System's board announced this afternoon that it formed a committee to review WakeMed's offer to buy its Raleigh subsidiary Rex Healthcare for $750 million.

UNC Health officials reiterated that they aren't interested in selling Rex, but will review the hostile takeover bid "in accordance with our fiduciary responsibility."

The committee is expected to review WakeMed's proposal for several weeks and then make a recommendation to the full board. The committee includes D. Jordan Whichard, who will be chairman, as well as board members Lisa Fischbeck, Andrew Greganti, Dale Jenkins, James Speed and UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp.

"We strongly believe that Rex is an integral part of UNC Health Care," said UNC Health board chairman Richard Krasno, in a prepared statement.

Novant Health, a Winston-Salem hospital chain eager to expand into the Triangle, has suffered a setback in that effort.

Novant last year won permission from state regulators to build a surgery center in Holly Springs, its first major foothold in this region. But Raleigh hospitals WakeMed and Rex Healthcare appealed the decision, contending that Novant used inaccurate information in its application.

An administrative law judge recently agreed. The judge, Donald Overby, recommended that Novant's project should be denied, in part because Novant's "financial projections are not credible, reliable or reasonable."

He also determined that WakeMed's proposal to add operating rooms at its Cary campus was superior and should be approved.

WakeMed leaders are urging UNC officials to begin negotiations on their hostile $750 million bid to buy rival Raleigh hospital Rex Healthcare.

In a letter delivered Wednesday to UNC president Tom Ross, WakeMed CEO Bill Atkinson and chairman Tom Oxholm wrote that they want to close the acquisition "on or before" Dec. 31.

"We think it could be done by the close of the year, assuming everyone wants it to happen and we put teams in place on both sides to make it happen," Atkinson said in a phone interview today.

"We hope the state of North Carolina and UNC will look at this in a timely and fair and serious manner," he added. "We have a very viable proposal and it could be a big plus to the state of North Carolina economically."

Still, a sale is far from certain.

UNC officials have made clear that while they will review WakeMed's offer, they're not interested in selling Rex, which is a foundation of the UNC Health Care System's expansion strategy in Wake County. Ross had recently requested more information from WakeMed, which made the unsolicited offer to buy Rex last month.

WakeMed faces a Friday deadline to provide more information about its $750 million offer to buy rival Raleigh hospital Rex Healthcare.

WakMed made its hostile takeover offer last month in a letter to Thomas Ross, president of the UNC system, which has owned Rex since 2000. But that offer included "insufficient information" to evaluate the proposal, Ross wrote in a recent letter responding to WakeMed CEO Bill Atkinson.

Ross is seeking additional data, including how WakeMed will pay for the acquisition, the identity of a "reputable" investment bank advising WakeMed on the deal, commitments regarding retention of Rex employees, and how "such a transaction would comply with Federal anti-trust laws."

Ross wants more information by Friday. "If I receive no response by that date, I will assume the offer is not a serious one and will deem it withdrawn," he wrote.

WakeMed spokeswoman Heather Monackey said officials are working on a written response and expect to have it ready this week.

Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro plans to become the second community hospital in North Carolina to affiliate with a joint venture formed by the Duke University Health System and LifePoint Hospitals.

Person Memorial's board announced this morning it is negotiating with Duke LifePoint Healthcare on a proposed acquisition. The hospital, which opened in 1950 and is licensed for 110 beds, is the latest small facility to seek safety in a larger health system.

The consolidation is being fueled in part by rising medical costs and the federal health overhaul. Smaller hospitals face tough challenges in paying for new technology and negotiating with health insurers in the new environment.

Duke's health system and others, including the UNC Health Care System, are looking to buy or partner with smaller hospitals to establish larger medical networks, improve care and create new efficiencies.

Two debt-rating analysts who follow bonds issued by WakeMed and Rex Healthcare say that they won't automatically reduce WakeMed's rating if the hospital borrows millions more to pay for its proposed $750 million purchase of Rex.

"As part of the acquisition, there will be certain economies of scale, certain efficiencies that get realized," said James LeBuhn, a Chicago-based analyst with Fitch Ratings. "We would take that into account vs. the increased debt load. There's a benefit to size and scale."

Since WakeMed announced its hostile takeover offer this month, critics have questioned whether the hospital can afford to pay that much money for Rex, plus assume Rex's $158 million in debt. UNC Health officials have said they're not interested in selling Rex, but will form a committee to consider a formal offer from WakeMed.

WakeMed officials, including Tom Oxholm, an accountant who took over as chairman this week, have said they will pay for Rex using a combination of more than $600 million in cash reserves as well as additional financing.

"That is a staggering amount of money," said Kevin Schulman, a health-care economist at Duke University. 

Tom Oxholm is an alumnus of UNC Chapel Hill, has been a "loyal" donor to the school and three of his four children are also graduates.

But in the brawl between the UNC Health Care System and WakeMed, it's clear where his loyalties lie. Oxholm, who has served on WakeMed's board for eight years, began a two-year term as the hospital's chairman today.

He replaces Billie Redmond, a Raleigh real-estate executive who was chairwoman since May 2009.

WakeMed made an unsolicited, $750 million offer to buy rival Rex Healthcare from UNC Health this month and Oxholm said in a phone interview this morning that the proposal will consume much of his attention in the coming months. The union would improve medical care in this region, and help reduce health costs by creating new efficiencies, Oxholm said.

"We're not trying to do a hostile takeover," he said. "We just think a combination would be the best thing for Wake County."

Oxholm, 55, is also a Certified Public Accountant and the chief financial executive at Knightdale-based Wake Stone Corp. Click "Read More" to see more highlights from this morning's interview.