By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
CRANBURY — While government can sometimes be a bitter pill to swallow, Republican Ron Haas wants to help sweeten the medicine by going to Trenton as a legislator.
Mr. Haas, 68, of Monroe Township, declared that he intends to run for assemblyman for the 14th District against incumbent Democrats Daniel Benson and Wayne DeAngelo.
The retired chemist made the announcement Sunday during the Middlesex County Republican Women’s Club Reagan Day at the Cranbury Inn.
With a background in pharmaceuticals, including his own company, Haas Pharmaceuticals,
Mr. Haas said that New Jersey was once called the “medicine chest of the world” because the pharmaceuticals industry housed its corporate offices here.
”That changed and people started moving out as the politics changed,” Mr. Haas said.
According to Mr. Haas, the taxes and cost of operating in New Jersey became intolerable to many of the drug companies and he attributes the unfriendly business practices to Democratic control of the state government.
As a result, he said, many companies left New Jersey and took their business to the greener pastures of states such as North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
”I’d like to get into Trenton and try to represent companies that stay in New Jersey and come back with research and development,” Mr. Haas said. “To make (New Jersey) the strongest research and development state in the Union.”
Research and development of new medications is “absolutely necessary,” according to Mr. Haas, however, the research and development of today is not what it once was.
Drug companies today don’t want to spend the dollars to develop medications that are not necessarily the most profitable, he said.
People with medical conditions that drug companies don’t invest in are “left high and dry,” Mr. Haas said.
”That’s where I think government should help,” he said. “The market is not serving what it should serve.”
Mr. Haas said he is in favor of state programs to allocate research and development dollars to pharmaceutical companies to develop needed drugs for less profitable conditions.
Compassion, and not the bottom line, should be the driving force behind pharmaceutical companies today, Mr. Haas said, and it isn’t.
”Why can’t we spend money on research to develop drugs for people with unusual disease states?” Mr. Haas said.
Running for office, with his unique qualifications and experience, is a chance to help make a difference in people’s lives, he said.
”I would like to help people,” Mr. Haas said. “That’s what I’d like to do.”

