Menendez Hammers Senate Opponent on Celgene Drugs

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s latest re-election television advertisement steps up the attack on his Republican challenger, former Celgene Corp. chief executive Bob Hugin, for a $280 million legal settlement over the company’s cancer-drug marketing.

The Democrat’s ad, the third in three weeks from the 64-year-old senior senator from New Jersey, follows months of mostly unanswered lobs from Hugin, also 64. A self-funding multimillionaire, Hugin since February has aired commercials spotlighting a federal corruption case against Menendez that ended in a hung jury and the charges’ dismissal. Menendez has said the charges were baseless.