A new analyst report from William Blair has highlighted Carterra as a key technology provider positioned to benefit from the growing use of artificial intelligence in early-stage drug discovery, where demand for high-throughput wet lab testing is expected to increase.

In a white paper titled From Code to Clinic: How AI Is (and Isn’t) Rewriting the Life of a Drug, analysts Matthew Larew and Jacob Krahenbuhl argue that AI is reshaping rather than replacing laboratory-based drug discovery, with computational tools generating more hypotheses that still require physical validation.

The analysts said the expectation that AI will reduce wet lab activity is overstated, noting that experimental testing remains essential as discovery workflows become more data-driven.

They wrote: “AI is not replacing the physical work of drug discovery, but it is reshaping it… those hypotheses will always need to be physically tested in the wet lab.”

Within this framework, the report identified Carterra as a “winner” in enabling high-throughput experimental workflows, particularly in areas including antigen and assay preparation, hit identification, antibody screening, binding characterisation and antibody optimisation.

The analysts highlighted increasing use of high-throughput surface plasmon resonance (HT-SPR) as drug discovery becomes more reliant on large-scale screening and characterisation datasets generated through AI-led approaches.

They added that HT-SPR platforms could reduce reliance on traditional low-throughput assays such as ELISA and conventional SPR or biolayer interferometry methods in certain applications, particularly where large numbers of candidates require rapid binding analysis.

Carterra has developed label-free biosensor systems based on HT-SPR technology over the past two decades, with adoption across major pharmaceutical companies globally. Its latest platform, Vega, launched in early 2026, is designed to enable primary screening of more than 20,000 small molecules per day using SPR-based methods.

The company said the system allows researchers to apply gold-standard SPR earlier in discovery workflows, potentially increasing screening depth while maintaining binding accuracy at scale.

Josh Eckman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Carterra, said: “We’re grateful for the recognition of Carterra as a winner and enabler in the AI revolution occurring in drug discovery.”

He added that the company aims to support faster decision-making in early discovery and improve the likelihood of clinical success through more efficient screening technologies.

The report is based on interviews with 20 companies and key opinion leaders across the drug discovery sector and examines how AI is influencing experimental design, data generation and laboratory workflows.

While the findings reflect broader industry sentiment around increased integration of AI and experimental platforms, the report does not provide independent performance validation of Carterra’s technology.

As AI adoption accelerates across early drug discovery, analysts expect demand for high-throughput experimental systems to increase rather than decline, particularly in biologics and small molecule screening applications.