ByteDance Presents AI Drug Discovery Advances at Global Conferences

ByteDance has begun showcasing artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery through its Anew Labs unit at international conferences, highlighting new therapies and frameworks (02/05).

The Chinese technology company, which owns TikTok, is expanding its AI initiatives despite reporting a 70 per cent profit decline in 2025.

AI-Designed Therapy for Autoimmune Diseases Unveiled

Anew Labs, also known as Anew Therapeutics or ByteDance AI Drug Discovery, operates in Shanghai, Singapore, and San Jose, California.

In mid-April, Chris Li, head of biology, presented one of four pipeline drug candidates at Immunology2026 in Boston, organised by the American Association of Immunologists.

The therapy was developed using generative AI and targets certain autoimmune diseases.

Global Participation Highlights Technical Developments

She Yuli, head of data, attended the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro in late April, according to her LinkedIn post.

The event focuses on the advancement of deep learning.

Yu Haoyu, head of computational chemistry, announced plans to attend the 2026 Free Energy Workshop in Barcelona starting May 4.

He is expected to present AnewSampling, a framework designed to reproduce molecular dynamics at the all-atom level

New AI Frameworks Developed with Academic Collaboration

AnewSampling was launched in March as part of the unit’s technical developments.

In the same month, Anew Labs introduced AnewOmni, a unified generative framework trained on more than five million biomolecular complexes.

The framework was developed in collaboration with Tsinghua University.

Advisory Board and AI Investment Strategy

Anew Labs lists 36 core members and includes several experts on its scientific advisory board.

These include Liu Yongjun, former president of Innovent Biologics, Ji Ma, a former principal scientist at Amgen, and Hua Zou, scientific director of protein chemistry at Takeda California.

ByteDance continues to invest heavily in artificial intelligence through its Seed department, established in early 2023 after the rise of interest in large language models following OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The division focuses on AI for science, robotics, and large language models, with a goal of advancing intelligence capabilities.

Earlier this year, ByteDance introduced Seedance 2.0, a video generator noted for vivid output, but it faced accusations of intellectual property infringement from Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures.

The company said it would strengthen safeguards, and the model has been launched overseas but is not available in the United States.

PHOTO: TZ.DE

This article was created with AI assistance.

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