How TikTok parent is using AI to boost drug discovery
What's the story
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, is making significant strides in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) with its dedicated drug-discovery unit, Anew Labs. The Shanghai-based division has been actively presenting its AI-developed therapies at international conferences. Also known as Anew Therapeutics or ByteDance AI Drug Discovery, the team operates from three major locations: Shanghai, Singapore and San Jose in California.
Team composition
Anew Labs has a team of 36 core members
Anew Labs boasts a strong team of 36 core members. The unit also has an impressive "scientific advisory board" that includes industry veterans like Liu Yongjun, ex-president of Innovent Biologics; Ji Ma, ex-principal scientist at Amgen; and Hua Zou, scientific director of protein chemistry at Takeda California. This diverse mix of talent highlights the unit's commitment to innovative drug discovery through AI technology.
Conference presentations
Presentations at major conferences in April
In mid-April, Chris Li, the head of biology at Anew Labs, presented one of the unit's four pipeline drug candidates at Immunology2026 in Boston. The treatment was designed by generative AI for specific autoimmune diseases. Later in April, She Yuli, head of data at Anew Labs, attended the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro. The event brought together professionals committed to advancing deep learning technology.
Future presentation
Upcoming conference in Barcelona
Yu Haoyu, head of computational chemistry at Anew Labs, has announced his participation in the 2026 Free Energy Workshop in Barcelona, Spain. The event is dedicated to AI chemistry and starts on May 4. Yu plans to present AnewSampling, a framework for reproducing molecular dynamics at an all-atom level. This upcoming presentation further highlights the unit's commitment to pushing boundaries in drug discovery using advanced AI technologies.