Olivier Boss
Chief Scientific Officer & Founder Energesis Pharmaceuticals Inc
Olivier Boss is the Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of Energesis Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapies for obesity, diabetes, and related metabolic diseases. With a career spanning over 30 years, he has led programs in small molecules, peptides, proteins, and cell therapies. Trained as a biochemist and exercise physiologist, he holds a PhD in Medical Biochemistry and Physiology from the University of Geneva and has postdoctoral research in Endocrinology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His expertise lies in the physiology of energy balance, including body weight regulation, appetite, satiety, energy expenditure, and mitochondrial energetics. Dr. Boss has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and has been an invited speaker at over 30 scientific and industry conferences. Before founding Energesis, he held leadership roles at Novartis, Adipogenix, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, and GSK, contributing to drug discovery programs and multiple INDs, IPOs, and acquisitions. He has secured over $10 million in NIH and DoD grants. A former competitive cyclist and certified cycling trainer, he integrates exercise physiology into his scientific work.
Seminars
- Prioritizing the resolution of co-morbidities such as MASH, CKD, and heart failure to move beyond BMI reduction as the sole metric of clinical success, establishing obesity drugs as essential “foundation therapies” for lifelong cardiometabolic protection
- Implementing evidence-based “step-down” protocols, transitioning patients from high-dose injectable peptides to low-dose oral small molecules or RNA-based silencers to suppress the biological “rebound effect” after reaching goal weight for durable weight stability and higher long-term therapy persistence
- Integrating longitudinal data on physical function, hospitalization rates, and employment status to quantify the total economic value of long-term obesity treatment, providing a robust scientific justification for expanded reimbursement and universal patient access across diverse socioeconomic populations
- All currently approved obesity drugs act by reducing food intake, causing a drop in metabolic rate (thermogenesis) • To achieve durable weight control and cardiometabolic benefits, agents that increase metabolic rate are needed to complement existing therapies
- Energesis Pharmaceuticals is developing oral small molecules and proteins that boost energy expenditure – the missing therapeutic dimension in obesity treatment
- Energesis uses a proprietary platform of human brown/beige/brite adipocyte adult stem cells to discover novel targets and develop therapies that increase the amount of brown fat and induce long-term weight loss
- Our drug candidates drive robust fat-specific weight loss – without muscle loss – and show strong synergy with GLP-1 agents
