Talon Therapeutics Inc. must hurdle a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel March 21 before its experimental leukemia drug can be approved.

San Mateo-based Talon (OTCBB: TLON) said Friday that its drug Marqibo will be assessed by the FDA’s oncology drugs advisory committee for treating adult Philadelphia chromosome-negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rare blood cancer.

“We believe Marqibo has the potential to help a near end-stage leukemia population of patients without good treatment options,” Talon President and CEO Dr…

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Hanger Orthopedic Group Inc., a manufacturer and provider of prosthetics, orthotics and related services, has unveiled a new name, logo and strategy.

The Austin-based company plans to shorten its name to Hanger (NYSE: HGR), and change its clinic business, now called Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics, to Hanger Clinic. The company’s shareholders are expected to approve the name changes at the annual shareholder meeting in May.

The company has developed a new logo to compliment the name changes called Empower Mark, that “symbolizes a beacon of hope for Hanger’s clients,” company officials said…

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The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation on Friday said it has reversed its decision about funding grants for Planned Parenthood.

The organization, which has Cincinnati affiliate, said earlier this week that it would not fund grant applications to groups under federal investigation, which includes Planned Parenthood.

Culture Map reports that after the initial Komen announcement, Planned Parenthood received more than $400,000 in donations in 24 hours.

A Friday statement from Nancy Brinker, the founder of the foundation, apologized for upsetting its supporters and partners with the funding removal, and said the foundation will “ensure that politics has no place in our grant process…

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Modeling analysis enables understanding efficacy of large numbers of potential drug combinations.
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Believe it or not, there is a beneficiary of the controversial decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to not continue funding breast cancer screening at Planned Parenthood centers.

San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action saw donations from its recent email alerts surge 30-fold from the average volume of click-throughs from the alerts, said spokeswoman Angela Wall. It sent out two alerts Wednesday about the change in Komen’s grant process, which Planned Parenthood has charged was based on pressure from antiabortion activists, and how the change affects Planned Parenthood…

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A decision about the future of Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee will be made within 60 days, according to Dr. Nick Turkal, president and chief executive officer of Aurora Health Care.

Turkal sent out a letter to community members Thursday night saying the plan will fulfill Aurora’s pledge to balance “sound clinical practice, patient and community needs and what we can afford as a single health care system among several serving Milwaukee.”

Sinai has lost $107 million over the last decade and is projected to lose another $30 million this year if nothing changes…

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Intellectual property rights from the University of California, Berkeley, have been used to start 146 businesses in the last two decades.

Some prolific professors have started plenty of companies — chemist Richard Mathies, for example, has helped start 15 businesses, with five of them directly based on his laboratory’s breakthroughs. Mathies has 35 patented inventions, among them miniaturized “labs on a chip” — an idea behind Affymetrix Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFX), which he helped found.

Chiron Corp…

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Amazon is joining other local tech companies in backing a proposed state law to legalize same-sex marriages.

In a statement, Seattle-based Amazon said the “spirit of these bills is consistent with our long-standing employment practices.”

The statement, reported by The Seattle Times, comes a couple of weeks after Microsoft, RealNetworks and Concur said they were endorsing a move to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington.

The state Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would legalize gay marriage in the state…

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Auxogyn Inc. said Thursday it has closed of the final tranche of its Series A funding.

The private Menlo Park-based company is focused on advancing women’s reproductive health and has raised $20 million to date. It specializes in a non-invasive early embryo viability assessment system called Eeva.

According to a prepared statement, the initial tranche was placed in May 2010, and investors in the round include Menlo Park-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, San Francisco-based TPG Biotech and Merck Serono Ventures, the strategic venture capital fund of Merck Serono, the division for biopharmaceuticals of German chemical and pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA…

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The University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute has four expansion initiatives planned that total 547,475 square feet.

The first initiative is to double the size of its 6,157-square-foot office in Plantation.

By the fall of 2013, Bascom Palmer plans to add 21,318 square feet to its Palm Beach Gardens medical office – a nearly 50 percent increase in size.

In Naples, Bascom Palmer is adding 1,283 square feet to its office in the next few months, which also represents a 50 percent increase…

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