HINJ Recognizes Senator Loretta Weinberg with the Bob Franks Public Service Award

TRENTON – Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a long-time advocate for access to quality health care for all, and a believer in the great equalizer that the field of life sciences can be when it comes to fighting disease, was recognized by the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey with the Bob Franks Public Service Award for demonstrating the spirit of public service that Franks exemplified as an elected official and as President and Chief Executive Officer of HINJ.

“Much like Bob Franks, Senator Loretta Weinberg truly exemplifies what it means to be a public servant,” said HINJ President and CEO Dean J. Paranicas. “Senator Weinberg has had a distinguished legislative career, including sponsoring laws to support patients and medical research; however, her legacy will be as a champion of women’s rights and working to end discrimination and eliminate sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace, particularly in politics and government.”

“I am honored to receive this award from HINJ, which remembers Bob Franks, a public servant who understood the importance of quality health care, and the vital role that the biopharmaceutical and life sciences industries, as well as New Jersey’s academic research institutions, play in the lives of our residents,” said Senator Weinberg (D-Bergen).

“HINJ is an association that has had a phenomenal impact on the lives and health of countless millions of New Jerseyans. Certainly, the life sciences industry has played and continues to play an outsized role in our state’s economy. Yet during the trials of this past year we also were reminded so vividly of the role these institutions play in maintaining our overall collective health.”

HINJ established the Bob Franks Public Service Award to recognize public officials and community leaders who demonstrate the spirit of public service that Bob Franks exemplified, as an Assemblyman, Congressman and President of HINJ.

“While our doctors, nurses, paramedics and so many others rushed toward danger, so that the rest of us might be safe, our researchers, pharmaceutical professionals and those in the medical technology and life sciences field fought the pandemic on another front, burning the midnight oil in an effort to help stem the COVID tide. I am proud to support the membership of HINJ and all they do for New Jersey, and deeply honored to receive this award.”