Australian company Cavitus is eyeing North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park region as a possible site to relocate its headquarters. The company is planning the move to be closer to existing customers and to find new ones in the pharmaceutical industry. Other cities in the running include Boston and Chicago.

Abbott had solid earnings to report, but problems in the pharmaceuticals portion of its business are triggering job cuts. About 2 percent of the company’s global workforce will be let go. Its earnings–per-share expectations are also considered low.

Abbott Laboratories Inc. (NYSE:ABT) goes before a Food & Drug Administration panel today, seeking to expand the indication for its RX Acculink carotid artery stent.

Health insurance companies have increasingly relied on data-driven decision-making based on claims data. Blue Health Intelligence, a data analysis business for Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, was created to help members as healthcare shifted to an evidence-based, decision-making model. BCBS will spin off the service into its own company and has sent aside $28 million for the shift.

Eugene Goldwasser discovery’s of erythropoietin (EPO) helped launch the biotech industry. EPO itself has been controversial at times – subsidized by the government and abused by athletes. But Goldwasser’s lengthy and publicly funded search for the protein was nothing but amazing. He passed away on Friday.

Insys Therapeutics, a Phoenix-based drug development company focused on pain and oncology, will swallow Chicago-area biopharmaceutical developer NeoPharm Inc. (OTC:NEOL.PK) through a reverse merger worth an initial $135 million in stock.

Skokie, Illinois, health information technology company RemCare Inc. has closed a $2.7 million Series A round of investment and taken the name of its flagship product — Care Team Connect.

With publicly revealed investments of $250,000 from a Cleveland economic development group and $400,000 from an Illinois angel group, rudimentary mathematics tell us heart monitoring startup Endotronix Inc. has raised at least $650,000. But the company’s latest funding round went above that amount, only Endotronix isn’t saying by how much.

Skokie, Illinois, health information technology company RemCare Inc. has raised $1.9 million in equity and warrants, and wants to raise $1.4 million more.

Corrected 8:39 a.m., Aug. 4, 2010The private equity firm behind the recent acquisition of the Ethicon Endo-Surgery breast care unit near Cincinnati, Ohio, is on its way to raising a $3 billion fund.GTCR is raising its 10th fund, according to peHUB. The Chicago firm raised $2.75 billion for its ninth fund in 2006 — before [...]