Dr. Oesch is a biochemist and molecular biologist by training. He has worked in the prion field since 1982 starting with the cloning of the gene for the prion protein.

In 1997 he founded the company Prionics AG with the aim of developing diagnostic tools to detect cattle infected with BSE. In 1999 and the following years it became clear that the BSE cases seen traditionally were only the tip of the iceberg. These results aggravated the BSE crisis and led to a Europe-wide mandatory surveillance for BSE. Dr. Oesch was CEO/CSO of Prionics for 10 years and chairman of Prionics’ Board of Directors until the end of 2010. Prionics is now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

In 2009 Dr. Oesch engaged with Neurotune AG (www.neurotune.com) as CEO and Executive Chairman to develop drugs modulating neuronal transmission in rare neuromuscular diseases.

In 2010 he also founded Malcisbo AG (www.malcisbo.com) together with fellow scientists. Malcisbo develops sugar-based vaccines. In Malcisbo, he acts as CEO.