Clinical Oncology
Development Experts
Consulting services for the biopharmaceutical industry to support the clinical development of brave science.
Each strategic decision can impact clinical outcomes.
Navigate brings in-depth knowledge of precision oncology to support the clinical development of game-changing therapies for patients living with cancer.
SERVICES
We help clients successfully navigate the challenges of early clinical development.
From focused strategic work to interim CMO leadership, Navigate creates solutions for each client’s specific challenges. We engage with companies throughout the early development timeline from company start-up and preclinical stage to IND, Phase 1/2 trials and clinical proof-of-concept.
APPROACH
Navigate has a precision oncology approach to clinical strategy and trial design.
Communicate
Understand each client's unique science, vision, challenges and culture. Create a plan to support specific needs and achieve clinical objectives. Communicate with transparency for concise messaging adapted for diverse teams and audiences.
Collaborate
Work collaboratively and participate as invested team players. Offer thoughtful, inclusive leadership and invite diverse expertise and opinions. Conduct an iterative process for optimized decision-making and innovative solutions to challenges.
Anticipate
Undertake comprehensive diligence, including input from key opinion leaders, to develop forward-looking clinical strategy. Anticipate evolving data and map out foreseeable challenges with contingency and risk mitigation planning.
Differentiate
Prioritize a precision medicine approach including enrichment for patients with high unmet medical needs, biomarker-driven patient selection and expedited regulatory pathways, for early clinical differentiation. Balance innovation and pragmatism to achieve clinical milestones and impactful outcomes.
ABOUT US
Navigate’s mission is to provide focused, impactful client solutions.
Jennifer Wheler, MD
Founder and President
An experienced Chief Medical Officer with over 20 years of clinical drug development experience and a track record of successful leadership. Jennifer is the Founder and Principal of Navigate BioConsulting. As consulting CMO for biotechs in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia, she has built and led teams to achieve early clinical and corporate milestones. Navigate also supports leading life science venture capital and private equity firms. Jennifer was the Founding CMO at Bicara Therapeutics where she led an India-based CMC team to IND approval for EGFR/TGFβ fusion protein ficerfusp alfa (BCA101), built the US-based clinical team, designed and led the FIH Phase 1/2 trial of ficerfusp alfa as monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab for patients with recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. As Senior Director at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) she led early clinical development of several immunotherapy programs, achieving NIBR’s earliest clinical POC for an IO agent.
Before joining industry, Jennifer was an Associate Professor in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where she was Principal Investigator on over 30 Phase I Clinical Trials including the institution’s first tumor agnostic basket trial, and early trials of Cabometyx®, Adcetris®, Rozlytrek®, and Foundation One® CDx. She is co-author on 140 peer-reviewed publications including results of a study to evaluate CGP matching (highlighted in ASCO’s Annual report on Clinical Cancer Advances).
After completing her Bachelor of Arts in art history at Princeton University, Jennifer earned her MD at Cornell Medical College. She completed her internal medicine training at Columbia University/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and fellowships in medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center and breast medical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
She is the Founder of Collage, a non profit with a mission to provide personalized art programs for patients living with cancer, and a speaker at Harvard Medical School’s MEDscience program.
CONTACT US
Learn how we can help your team successfully navigate early clinical development.