Jaguar Health, Inc. (Jaguar or the Company) and its wholly owned subsidiary Napo Pharmaceuticals (Napo) announced that Dr. Kelly Shanahan, a former clinician and a metastatic breast cancer patient who is now a full-time independent patient advocate, has joined the Jaguar/Napo Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Dr. Shanahan is a metastatic cancer patient advocate who had to give up her obstetrics and gynecology practice because of side effects of her treatments. She received her medical degree in 1987 from the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

She did her post graduate studies at Temple University Hospital department of obstetrics and gynecology in Philadelphia, where she held the position of academic chief resident from 1990-1991. Dr Shanahan was in private practice in the suburbs of Philadelphia and then in South Lake Tahoe, California for over 20 years. In 2008, Dr. Shanahan had everything going for her: a busy and successful ob-gyn practice; a precocious 9-year-old daughter; and a well-used passport from traveling all over the world with her family to attend conferences, with a liberal dose of vacation on the side.

When she was diagnosed with stage IIB breast cancer in April 2008, she considered it a mere bump in the road. And for five years, breast cancer was an aside, something to put in the past medical history section of forms. Even when she developed sudden back pain, Dr. Shanahan never thought it could be breast cancer rearing its ugly head - a pulled muscle, a herniated disc maybe, but not what it turned out to be: metastatic breast cancer in virtually every bone in her body, with a fractured vertebrae and an about to break left femur. She was diagnosed in 2013, on her 53rd birthday.

Neuropathy from the chemo cost Dr. Shanahan her career, but she has found a new purpose in advocacy. She is on the board of METAvivor, a member of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance, a Komen Advocate in Science, a grant reviewer, and research advocate. She is passionate about getting patients to the table in the design, implementation, and follow-up of clinical trials.