A G.O.P. Senate Candidate Highlights His Drug Industry Career. Should He?

The right claims to be pro-life and constantly screams about poor people getting welfare of food stamps and ripping off the government. Celgene under Hugin priced out a drug to help adults survive cancer by raising its cost $10,000 a month at the same time not warning people of the drugs incredible risks...anyone who lived through seeing the suffering of thalidomide babies can attest to those risks. Pharmaceutical companies constantly whine about the costs of research as a reason for high drug prices while never bringing up how much of those costs are funded by grants from the government and private agencies. Lying is the mainstay of the Big Pharma and there is no bigger Big Pharma purveyor of its lies than Bob Hugin. He tries to say he's for the common man but it's patently obvious he's a Trumpeteer in the race for how much he can do for himself and Big Pharma...in reality, they are one and the same.

The ability and jurisdiction to regulate drug prices rests with Congress. New Jersey is the pharma state. Menendez takes big donations from the industry and its executives. In all his years in Congress, Menendez has done nothing to control drug prices in the USA. Therefore, it is ludicrous for him to be criticizing an executive who acted within the pricing freedom Congress has granted him and his company. Menendez, on the other hand, is a bona fide sleazeball He and he alone is responsible for his behavior. What I cannot understand is the full embrace the Democratic party, particularly NJ Democratic elected officials, have given to Menendez. Years ago, we had a Senator Torricelli, who had his own scandals, but none of them were as serious as those which embroil Menendez. NJ Democrats got him off the re-election ticket a few weeks before the general election. But this time, they are sticking with Menendez. Which is one reason why I ceased supporting the Democratic party. If you embrace someone stinky, you will acquire the smell as well. Menendez has the audacity to claim that criticism of his behavior is anti-Hispanic. He says his relationship with felon Melgen is normal strong bond Hispanic male friendship, and attacking him is an attack on Hispanic culture. Nonsense. I refuse to believe that all Hispanics go out of their way to help criminal friends advance their crimes. Suggesting that his behavior is normal Hispanic behavior is outrageous.

Clearly, with these candidates oozing with conflicts of interest in their background, America has now devolved into one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. What is even more disturbing is the industry that Mr Hugin has been involved with is the leader in the dollars spent in lobbying in Washington, even more than the fossil fuel industry. No problem for Mr.Hugin though, if he doesn't win the election he will either get his old job back OR be one of the than MORE than 50% of politicians, when vacating their job by either leaving or losing an election, become a lobbyist for an industry in which they previously were employed.

The real issues for NJ voters: 1. Republicans raised our taxes by limiting SALT -- we cannot reward the Party, regardless. 2. Bob Hugin has not criticized the Administration or Republican Party leadership, which has been a problem in the Senate majority. Silence = Acceptance. So he can run a negative campaign against Senator Menendez, but our Senator is no tacit Trump supporter.

These guys always claim the cost and time of development to justify price but don't ever show their books.

I noticed Lance in the picture. He will lose his seat because everyone knows what a phony GOP "moderate" he is. He only votes against Trump when the GOP doesn't need his vote to pass odious legislation. He's history, given the company he keeps.

Had a drug rep friend who went to work for Celgene in its first sales force expansion. 23 years in the industry, and she left in 6 months due to management's insistence experienced reps put their own careers and credibility on the line with their established physician base with clinically unsupported claims. Celgene management known in the industry for its openness to ignore the FDA, admit they would pay any fine necessary if it came to it, because they believed the AIDS community would not allow the drug to be pulled off the market.

I’ll take the devil I know - Menedez

Menendez, who took all sorts of favors from supporters, got lucky in that his criminal trial ended in a hung jury and Obama's Democrat Justice Department declined to prosecute him again.

How much does it cost to buy a doctor who agrees to use your drug for an off-label application? A politician can be bought for a few thousand in campaign contributions by people who stand to make billions from their votes, so my guess is that doctors also come cheaper than you'd expect. A candlelight dinner perhaps?

OK, so Hugin is both a bankster and a Big Pharma parasite. And that's supposed to make him an attractive alternative to Menendez in the Age of Trump? If Hugin's right about NJ voters being a little smarter than they're given credit for, he doesn't stand much of a chance. If he has any of those smarts himself, he won't be doing any campaign events with Chris Christie. The guy's still the political equivalent of leprosy.

M is not vulnerable in NJ, whatever he did. The people of NJ will not give Trump another GOP senator. Lesser of two evils is the justification. Rightly so.

“...it costs billions of dollars in research and development, and years of hard work by hundreds of researchers and scientists, to develop medicines that successfully treat and cure cancer.” I'd love to see the balance sheets to know how the R&D costs stack up against the Ad and Marketing costs to promote the product. Pharma companies always whine about R&D costs to deflect attention from the fact that they often spend many times more on promotion. I'd also love to know how much money was spent on the effort to keep their product from going generic -- many of us remember Schering-Plough's million dollar donation to C. Everett Koop's foundation in exchange for his testimony to the U.S. Congress that its drug Claritin should receive an extended patent. I wish the Democrats had managed to field a Senate candidate who didn't pose the ethical issues that Menendez does. But after watching Menendez chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he led the effort to sanction Russia over its actions in Ukraine, and questioned Mike Pompeo over the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, he has my vote. Much better him than a mini-Martin Shkreli.

Two horrible candidates, my regrets to the citizens of New Jersey !

I wish Senator Menéndez would announce he is running for his last term in Office.

The real problem that I have with Mr. Hugin is that his commercials play non-stop in NJ, NY and CT. How much money does that costs? The fact the Hugin attacks, attacks, and attacks is very disconcerting. I am not saying that Mr. Menendez is an angel by no means, but really, how much is all of this advertising costing that is on every major channel? Just how much money did Hugin make while running the drug company??

Perhaps the DNC needs to understand that this country is sick and tired of all corrupt politicians, Bobby The Gusano Menendez chief among them?

I'm from NJ and fully intend to re-elect Senator Menendez, an encourage others too also. The mess in Washington is the fault of the Republican Party! They refuse to question a President who wants to do away with the 1st Amendment, and punish anyone who disagree with him. We through out a King in 1776. These spineless individuals need to go. New Jersey does not need another white guy who thinks he's above the law, and not accountable for his actions. Senator Menendez has faced his accusers as the law dictated, and has survived. Why don't the Republicans understand that. Muckrakers, that's all they are. Their commercials are horrific, and just another reason for not voting Republican. Keep producing negative adds and I'll join the Democratic Party.

The Dem party should have coaxed Menendez into retirement and come up with a fresh face.

So, Hugin was a bankster at JP Morgan until the pickings looked lusher in pharma, so off he went to profiteer off of misery and call it "service". Now he wants to take his brand of "service" and go to the Senate, bypassing any experience in "service" at the local or state level as too far beneath him. Wonder what about the Senate he finds so attractive?

New Jersey should take a look at another corporate executive turned politician over in Michigan, Dan Snyder. He used his corporate expertise to poison the water drank by thousands of people. He is a true genius!

Simply put, Hugin's candidacy is not supportable because of a technical factor: We can't tolerate another trump loyalist in congress. Hugin's drug machinations are questionable, but the Republican Party is untrustworthy. In his political ads, Hugin doesn't even mention that he's Republican. And if Hugin is so upset about corruption, why is he employing support from Christie? Senator Menendez has the Melgen affair behind him, all of which has been thoroughly exposed; he has done a lot for NJ. Hugin will do a lot for trump. If Hugin is such a great candidate, then he needs to promise that he will confront trump to fix his unfair tax bill against NJ residents. Fat chance of that, because, *no one* confronts trump. Maybe Hugin could wear his Dress Blues before trump, and the uniform-loving trump could just pat him on the head, the way trump condescendingly treats all of his supporters. We need a change back to democracy in November. Vote Democrat.

Enlightening and informative article, thank you. I had no idea that Hugin owes the totality of his personal fortune and fame to the remnants of, and the revamping of, thalidomide. I also did not know how recent the Celgene campus has existed. It is niched into Summit, NJ like its been there for 50 years. And that is not a cheap neighborhood to build. I also find Hugin's claim to "a life of service" to be remarkably misleading and deceptive. In that context one could also say that Alex Rodriguez or Madonna has also led a life of service. The article has helped clarify the money grab implemented by Hugin for his signature product, which is clearly true and not just an accusation in a Menendez commercial. It is a key point that Celgene is essentially that one product, accounting for most of its revenue. No one is saying Menendez is angelic or even the best man for the job. But I can tell you this- I have known executives like Hugin and New Jersey is not going to be better off 6 or 12 years down the road with guys like this leading the charge in Washington.

Mr. Hugin says that they high cost of drugs is due to the costs of research and development. I'm sure that he and Celegene's board of directors made only a modest amount of money from its product and didn't try to profit from people's suffering. Somehow the Republicans managed to choose a candidate who has an even worse personal reputation than does Menendez.

The drug industry represents one of the most evil and predatory in the world. It knows that people will pay everything they own to fight a disease and its only problem with cleaning out sick people for all they have are legal - not moral. Drug prices was one of the many things Trump promised to do something about - and nothing has happened.

Funny how Hugins talks about Celgene developing a drug to treat cancer, when basically what Celgene did was manufacture something someone else had developed and counted on doctors 'rebranding it' for use, bypassing clinical trials that would allow them to advertise it as FDA approved treatment. Taking something someone else developed and marketing it doesn't require a team of researchers, that was purely marketing, taking advantage of desperate people with a drug someone else developed. Funny that Hugin's ads talk about Menendez sleazy character yet doesn't talk about how when he took over Celgene he made a fortune for the company and himself by selling something developed by others to desperate people and doctor's. Whatever Menendez did, it wasn't playing with people's lives the way Hugin did, since without clinical trials Celgene could not know if the drug worked on cancer, and they in a sense could have been promoting snake oil. And if anyone thinks Hugin will be a 'different type of republican", given that he personally benefitted from the huge GOP tax scam that is going to hurt a lot of people in NJ, or that he won't support Judges trying to turn the US into Alabama socially, I have a bridge and a several thousand acres of swamp for sale.