The ties between New Jersey government and the pharmaceutical industry grow a wee bit closer with the announcement that Christopher Christie has hired Richard Bagger (see photo), a senior vice president for worldwide public affairs at Pfizer, as his chief of staff.

Formerly a direct report to Pfizer chief executive Jeff Kindler and a well-regarded staffer, Bagger has been co-chairing Christie’s transition task force on budget and taxes. The Republican served in the NJ state Senate in 2002 and 2003, and the assembly for 10 years before that. He was previously an attorney for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and worked at the politically connected law firm of McCarter & English.

With its vast employment and tax payments, pharma has always had warm relations with NJ governments to the point where the state sometimes failed to aggressively join others in various actions against a drugmaker. If asked, Christie would likely argue he was tough on at least one drugmaker - as US Attorney four years ago, he forced Bristol-Myers Squibb into a $300 million settlement over conspiracy to commit securities fraud over channel stuffing (see here). However, that move wasn’t without its own controversy.

He was accused of using a deferred prosecution agreement to pressure the drugmaker into endowing an ethics chair at his alma mater, Seton Hall University School of Law. Christie maintained the drugmaker initiated the proposal to pay for ethics training at Rutgers, which already had a program, and switched to Seton Hall because it was New Jersey’s only other law school. The Justice Department subsequently issued guidelines barring such requirements as part of out-of-court corporate crime settlements.