Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OPTR)’s Dificid is on track to lead as many as five new antibiotics onto the market over the next three years as a surge in drug- resistant germs stokes the need for new medicines. The biotechnology industry is starting to fill a critical public-health niche being mostly shunned by larger drugmakers. Since 2006, only three of 111 drugs cleared in the U.S. were antibiotics. Optimer, a San Diego company with no marketed products, may win U.S. approval by May 30 to sell Dificid, a drug that fights stomach infections, the company has said.
