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🏠 ByteDance -> ByteDrugs

🏠 ByteDance -> ByteDrugs

CVS is so done

Stephen Flanders
January 05, 2024

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🏠 TECH

More Than Just TikTok

ByteDance is already the world’s most valuable startup, but like my girlfriend’s chocolate lab, they are always hungry for more.

We’ve already talked about their efforts in music, books, and shopping, but those are all low-hanging fruits. Obviously TikTok can get into music, publishing, and in-app shopping. It was basically tailor-made for those industries.

The expansion we’re discussing today is into something bigger: the hard sciences. Specifically biology, chemistry, natural sciences, and pharmaceuticals:

They are recruiting American talent in computational biology, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, and physics for its “AI for Drug Design” and “AI for Science” teams.
The drug design team, unsurprisingly, aims to revolutionize healthcare with AI-discovered drugs.
The AI for science group is more ambiguous, but it appears they’ll be working across biology, physics, and materials.

This probably comes as a surprise to you, it definitely did to me. But apparently, this effort has been underway since at least last summer when they hired a Head of AI for Drug Design and Science, a head, by the way, who has already led papers on protein design and drug design, as well as an open-source AI biology tool.

Now you’re probably wondering why a social media company is getting into the drug biz. Well, as it always does with TikTok, it comes down to data.

TikTok has a hell of a lot of data. As part of that, they have a hell of a lot of data on how people are feeling medically since so many people spew their beans on TikTok. They will likely be able to use that data to guide their product decision, not to mention the fact that TikTok gives them a distribution arm longer than any pharmaceutical dinosaur.

Going to CVS is out. Live shopping drugs on TikTok is in.

Stepping On Toes: To kickstart the effort, they are trying to lure talent away from American companies. If you’re an AI drug discovery expert, now’s the time to show yourself.