As Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump con­tin­ues to threat­en phar­ma tar­iffs, Ire­land is start­ing to see a de­cline in for­eign di­rect in­vest­ments (FDI) from phar­ma com­pa­nies as they start to re­lo­cate fu­ture man­u­fac­tur­ing builds and ex­pan­sions to the US.

Ire­land has been a hub for drug man­u­fac­tur­ing for decades, es­pe­cial­ly for mak­ing and sup­ply­ing raw ma­te­ri­als and API, said Ro­ry Mullen, head of bio­phar­ma and food at IDA Ire­land, in an in­ter­view with End­points News.

But now, phar­ma com­pa­nies that are start­ing their in­vest­ment projects in Ire­land, whether that’s an R&D or man­u­fac­tur­ing site, are paus­ing their plans, Mullen said. “Peo­ple are wait­ing for some sort of clar­i­ty on what the glob­al trade en­vi­ron­ment is go­ing to be like go­ing for­ward,” he added.

Bris­tol My­ers Squibb is get­ting a new chief med­ical of­fi­cer to steer its pipeline.

For­mer As­traZeneca CMO Cris­t­ian Mas­sace­si is set to take over from Samit Hi­rawat on Aug. 1, the day af­ter Bris­tol My­ers re­ports its sec­ond-quar­ter earn­ings. Hi­rawat, who is step­ping down, held the post for six years.

The “suc­cess” of those years was “un­prece­dent­ed,” Hi­rawat wrote Fri­day in a LinkedIn post, not­ing that there were 12 new ap­provals dur­ing his tenure.

Hi­rawat said he has known Mas­sace­si for 15 years and he will “bring his very best to this role.” Bris­tol said Hi­rawat is “step­ping down to pur­sue new pro­fes­sion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties” and will stay on as an ad­vi­sor through Nov. 1 to “en­sure a seam­less tran­si­tion.”

Plus, news about Lyell Im­munophar­ma, Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio, Ab&B Bio-Tech, So­bi, Ab­sci, Adicet Bio, Omeros, Phar­varis and Abi­vax:

Ever­est Med­i­cines rais­es $200M: The Shang­hai-based drug de­vel­op­er forged a share place­ment to raise HK $1.57 bil­lion (ap­prox­i­mate­ly $200 mil­lion) with “sev­er­al lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al long-on­ly funds.” About half the funds will go to­ward R&D, 40% will sup­port com­mer­cial­iza­tion ef­forts and the re­main­ing 10% will back gen­er­al cor­po­rate pur­pos­es. — Kyle LaHu­cik

San Diego biotech seeks a Se­ries B: Epir­i­um Bio is tar­get­ing about $55 mil­lion in its next round lat­er this year, ac­cord­ing to a cor­po­rate deck pub­lished ear­li­er this month. Six years ago, the biotech emerged with $85 mil­lion from Lon­gi­tude Cap­i­tal, ARCH Ven­ture Part­ners and oth­er VC firms. The po­ten­tial new round is timed to the read­out of a Phase 1 study of Epir­i­um’s oral 15-PGDH en­zyme in­hibitor, which is be­ing test­ed as a treat­ment for sar­cope­nia. The tri­al has com­plet­ed dos­ing, Epir­i­um said ear­li­er this week. It’s been a long jour­ney for the biotech, which has ori­gins dat­ing back more than a decade. — Kyle LaHu­cik