May 7, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPTR) has appointed Pedro Lichtinger as president and chief executive officer of the company as well as a director. Michael N. Chang, co-founder of Optimer, who has led the company as president and CEO since its inception, will now serve as chairman of the board and as a consultant.  

Lichtinger previously served as an executive of Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE: PFE) from 1995 to 2009, most recently as president of Pfizer's Global Primary Care business unit, where he oversaw operations in North America, Europe, Korea, and Australia.

Prior to this position, Lichtinger served as Pfizer's area president in Europe overseeing all pharmaceutical products including primary care, oncology, specialty and generic. Before joining Pfizer, he was an executive of Smith Kline Beecham, last serving as SVP for Europe Animal Health.

California-based Optimer Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing anti-infectives to treat serious infections and address unmet medical needs.

Optimer has two late-stage anti-infective product candidates under development. Fidaxomicin is a narrow spectrum antibiotic being developed for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection. Optmer has reported positive top-line results from two Phase 3 trials of fidaxomicin.

Pruvel is a prodrug in the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics being developed as a treatment for infectious diarrhea. Optimer has also completed two Phase 3 trials with Pruvel. 

Real-time, streaming research for companies and funds mentioned in FinancialWire(tm) news is available via the Investrend Research Syndicate, courtesy of Stock Smart (at http://investrend.stocksmart.com/ss/html/hpcompany.html).

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (at http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website at http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php and http://www.financialwire.net/2010/04/23/safe-harbor/). Additional resources for investors are also accessible via the FinancialWire(tm) website (at http://www.financialwire.net/2010/04/23/investor-resources/). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.

[hlmsmlh] [biomedphrm] [clvloy]

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.