AI Drug Discovery's Unsung Hero: The Lab, Powered by Carterra

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – April 08, 2026 – In a counterintuitive twist to the narrative of artificial intelligence automating every job, a new analysis asserts that AI's growing role in drug discovery will dramatically increase, not decrease, the demand for physical laboratory work. A white paper from respected investment bank William Blair has identified Salt Lake City-based Carterra as a key “Winner” in this evolving landscape, positioning its technology as a critical engine for the next generation of pharmaceutical research and development.

The report challenges the widely held belief that AI's computational power would render many traditional lab functions obsolete. Instead, it argues that AI is a voracious hypothesis generator, creating an unprecedented need for high-volume, high-quality experimental data to test and validate its predictions. This shift places companies that can provide rapid, large-scale biological screening at the center of the AI revolution.

The "Wet Lab Obsolescence" Myth

In their comprehensive white paper, “From Code to Clinic: How AI Is (and Isn’t) Rewriting the Life of a Drug,” William Blair analysts Matthew Larew and Jacob Krahenbuhl directly confront the “wet lab obsolescence narrative.” After extensive interviews with 20 companies and key industry leaders, they concluded the popular assertion is both “overstated and misframed.”

Their research posits that AI is fundamentally reshaping, not replacing, the physical work of drug discovery. “It is true that AI is increasingly being leveraged as a dry lab (i.e., computational) tool for hypothesis generation,” the analysts write, “but those hypotheses will always need to be physically tested in the wet lab.”

This creates a symbiotic relationship: AI algorithms can sift through immense biological datasets to identify promising drug candidates or novel targets in silico, but this work only accelerates the need for physical confirmation. The more hypotheses AI can generate, the greater the bottleneck becomes in the laboratory if technology doesn't keep pace. This is precisely the challenge Carterra's platforms are built to address, earning the company recognition as an enabler across multiple stages of discovery, from antigen preparation to antibody engineering.

High-Throughput Tech for High-Volume Hypotheses

For over two decades, fueled by an early investment from Pfizer, Carterra has been perfecting its high-throughput surface plasmon resonance (HT-SPR) technology. This label-free biosensor technology allows scientists to measure molecular interactions in real time, providing rich data on binding kinetics, affinity, and specificity—crucial parameters for determining a drug's potential effectiveness.

The William Blair report highlights that Carterra's HT-SPR is gaining significant traction as a powerful alternative to legacy methods like ELISA or lower-throughput SPR and biolayer interferometry (BLI) systems. The analysts note that traditional binding assays were often simple yes/no tests, whereas the scale of modern drug discovery requires far more.

“Carterra’s high-throughput SPR technology is potentially creating an opportunity to move straight to SPR because its high-throughput system matches the larger scale of binders emerging from AI lead generation programs,” the report states. This capability has already led to the adoption of Carterra’s platforms in each of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies, cementing their role in the industry's most advanced R&D pipelines.

Vega: Redefining the Scale of Discovery

Underscoring its leadership position, Carterra launched its newest platform, the Vega, earlier this year. The instrument represents a monumental leap in throughput and is designed specifically to meet the demands of the AI era. Marketed as the industry’s first 48-channel SPR platform, Vega delivers what the company reports as a 12-fold increase in performance over the leading 8-channel systems.

This power translates into the ability to screen more than 20,000 small molecule compounds in a single day using gold-standard SPR—a capacity that was previously unimaginable. For the first time, researchers can apply this high-resolution analysis technique during primary screening, generating vast, high-quality datasets that can both validate AI predictions and feed back into the algorithms to train more accurate future models. The platform's efficiency is further enhanced by an optional robotics module that enables unattended operation for days. The significance of this innovation is evidenced by its early adoption, with the first Vega system being shipped in the first quarter of 2026 to a key opinion leader at a top-10 global pharmaceutical company.

A Strategic Win in a Competitive Field

Carterra's recognition comes as it navigates a dynamic and competitive market. The global label-free array systems market was valued at over $610 million in 2026 and is projected to grow at a steady 7.44% CAGR. The field is populated by industry giants like Danaher, Bruker, and GE HealthCare, whose Biacore systems have long been a staple in discovery labs.

However, Carterra has distinguished itself through a dedicated focus on throughput. While previous studies have shown that Carterra’s earlier platforms produce results of comparable quality to competitors like the Biacore 8K, the launch of the 48-channel Vega places it in a class of its own for scale. By enabling researchers to characterize entire libraries of antibodies or screen thousands of compounds with unparalleled speed, Carterra is not just competing; it is creating a new standard for what is possible in early discovery.

“We’re grateful for the recognition of Carterra as a winner and enabler in the AI revolution occurring in drug discovery,” said Josh Eckman, CEO and Co-Founder of Carterra, in a recent statement. “William Blair is well respected in our industry for thoughtful and detailed research. We appreciate the coverage and will continue to innovate in early discovery to shorten the time to market as well as the likelihood of success in the clinic.” This commitment to bridging the gap between computational theory and clinical reality positions the company as an indispensable partner in the future of medicine.