The company that built TikTok’s algorithm is now designing drugs for diseases pharma called undruggable

ByteDance’s Anew Labs Presents First AI-Designed Therapy

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The company that built TikTok’s algorithm is now designing drugs for diseases pharma called undruggable

May 2, 2026 – 9:01 am

TL;DR

ByteDance’s drug discovery unit Anew Labs presented its first AI-designed therapy at a major immunology conference in Boston, showcasing a generative AI-designed small molecule targeting IL-17, a protein-protein interaction long considered undruggable. The unit also published AnewOmni, a generative framework trained on 5 million biomolecular complexes, claiming to be the first to design functional molecules across all scales.

ByteDance has joined the AI drug discovery race alongside Isomorphic Labs, Anthropic, and Insilico Medicine.

The company that built TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, now uses a similar class of AI to predict how molecules will behave inside a human body. At the American Association of Immunologists’ annual meeting in April, Anew Labs presented its first AI-designed therapy, a small molecule designed to inhibit IL-17, a cytokine involved in autoimmune diseases.

Historically, pharmaceutical companies have struggled to target protein-protein interactions with conventional small molecules due to their complex binding surfaces. However, Anew Labs claims its AI found a solution.

Further presentations are planned at the BIO International Convention in San Diego in June and the Free Energy Workshop in Barcelona next week.

Anew Labs Operations:

• Based in Shanghai, Singapore, and San Jose, California.
• 36 core team members.
• Scientific advisory board includes industry veterans from Innovent Biologics, Amgen, and Takeda.

The unit aims to replace expensive injectable antibody therapies with oral pills designed using generative AI.

Chris Li, Head of Biology, presented one of Anew Labs’ four pipeline drug candidates in Boston, highlighting a pan-spectrum IL-17 inhibitor molecule.