What Carterra does

Carterra is a privately held life science tools company founded in 2005 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, that develops and manufactures High-Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) instruments used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for antibody screening, epitope binning, kinetic profiling, and small-molecule interaction analysis in drug discovery workflows. The company's technology platform combines proprietary flow-printing microfluidics (a 96-channel printhead and Single Flow Cell cartridge, originated at the University of Utah) with imaging-based SPR detection that monitors up to 384-192 simultaneous interactions in real time, protected by a portfolio of at least eight granted US patents. Its product line spans four instruments - the LSA, LSAXT, Ultra, and the February 2026-launched Vega (the industry's first 48-channel HT-SPR delivering 12x the throughput of 8-channel systems) - complemented by proprietary biosensor chips (HC, CMD, NiNTA, streptavidin, Protein A/G), Navigator experimental setup software, and Kinetics and Epitope Data Analysis Software. Carterra reports instruments installed across all 20/20 top pharmaceutical companies and at named accounts including Pfizer, Merck, GSK, Eli Lilly, Twist Bioscience, Generate Biomedicines, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

The company monetizes through direct enterprise sales of instruments (quote-based pricing via phone and contact forms), recurring revenue from proprietary sensor chips, printhead and SFC cartridges, licensed software with periodic updates (latest release V.2.0.0.5078 in October 2025), service contracts, and an international distributor network supported by regional offices in Walnut Creek, Andover, Munich/Planegg, and Manchester (UK). Go-to-market combines a direct enterprise field-sales motion with annual Carterra Symposia in San Francisco, Boston, and Amsterdam, major-conference presence (SLAS2025/SLAS2026 where Vega was announced), testimonial-led content marketing, and active LinkedIn and YouTube channels. Carterra is positioning itself explicitly for AI/ML-driven drug discovery, with William Blair analysts naming it a top life science tools provider for AI drug discovery in April 2026 and a strategic partnership with Generate Biomedicines embedding its LSA platform in an ML-driven protein design workflow.

Carterra operates from offices in Salt Lake City (HQ), Walnut Creek, Andover, Munich/Planegg, and Manchester, with 51-100 employees. The company has raised approximately $48M+ across disclosed rounds from 2012 to 2021 from investors including PerkinElmer, Telegraph Hill Partners, Ballast Point Ventures, Frazier VC, and PC Squared LLC; no funding rounds are disclosed since 2021. Leadership includes CEO Josh Eckman, founder and Senior Scientist James Smith, VP of Marketing and Product Christopher M. Silva, VP of R&D Ben Brooks, and Director of Research Bruce Gale (the University of Utah professor whose lab originated the core flow-printing technology). Revenue, ownership, and detailed financial metrics are not publicly disclosed.

Name

Carterra

Legal name

Carterra, Inc.

Website

https://carterra-bio.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Carterra is a privately held life science tools company that develops High-Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) instruments - including the LSA, LSAXT, Ultra, and Vega platforms - used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for high-throughput antibody screening, epitope binning, and small-molecule interaction analysis in drug discovery workflows.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High-Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) Instruments for Drug Discovery

NAICS

Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing (334516), Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714)

SIC

Laboratory Analytical Instruments (3826)

akta.pro primary industry

AI/ML Platforms for Drug Discovery & Experiment Optimization (HLAGAJAO)

akta.pro secondary industry

Material Characterization & Spectroscopy (NMR/FTIR/MS) (HLAGADAK)

Keywords

• High-throughput surface plasmon resonance
• Antibody screening instruments
• Epitope binning platforms
• Label-free biomolecular interaction
• Biosensor consumables

Headquarters

HQ city

Salt Lake City

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. HT-SPR Instrumentation Sales: Sale of high-throughput surface plasmon resonance instruments including Carterra Vega, Ultra, LSAXT, and LSA platforms. Instruments are sold directly through Carterra's sales team and through distributors. First unit of new platforms typically ships to Key Opinion Leaders at top pharmaceutical companies.
2. Sensor Chips and Consumables: Sale of proprietary biosensor chip chemistries including HC series (linear polycarboxylate), CMD series (carboxymethylated dextran), NiNTA, streptavidin, Protein A, and Protein A/G surfaces. Consumables also include the 96-channel printhead cartridges, SFC cartridges, and other assay-specific reagents.
3. Software Licenses and Updates: Kinetics and Epitope Data Analysis Software sold as licenses with periodic updates. Software version V.2.0.0.5078 released October 30, 2025. Customer portal provides access to software updates, user manuals, and training videos upon registration.
4. Service, Support, and Training: Service and support provided via dedicated support team (1-844-642-7635, Option 3) with hours 8:00 am – 6:00 pm MT. Application Training Program offered. Technical support updates distributed to customers.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Carterra develops, manufactures, and sells High-Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) instruments — Carterra Vega, Ultra, LSAXT, and LSA — that enable parallel, label-free characterization of biomolecular interactions for antibody and small molecule drug discovery. The company also supplies proprietary biosensor sensor chips, printhead and SFC cartridges, and data analysis software (Kinetics, Epitope, Navigator) used by pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and AI drug discovery customers globally.

Product overview

Carterra offers a portfolio of four High-Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) instruments for antibody and small molecule drug discovery: Carterra Vega (industry's first 48-channel platform for screening >20,000 compounds daily), Carterra Ultra (most versatile platform for small molecule and fragment analysis with enhanced sensitivity), Carterra LSAXT (enhanced data quality for antibody discovery), and Carterra LSA (detailed antibody kinetic and epitope binning characterization). The ecosystem includes specialized sensor chips in various chemistries (carboxymethylated dextran, NiNTA, streptavidin, Protein A/G), Kinetics Data Analysis Software for processing up to 1152 kinetic interactions, Epitope Data Analysis Software for 384x384 binning studies, and AI/ML tools for generating data to train and validate computational drug discovery models.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Carterra Vega Industry's first 48-channel high-throughput surface plasmon resonance (HT-SPR) instrument delivering 12-fold higher throughput than existing systems, enabling screening of more than 20,000 small molecule interactions per day for drug discovery workflows. Targets pharmaceutical and biotechnology drug discovery customers.
• Carterra Ultra Most versatile HT-SPR platform for small molecule and biological discovery with enhanced sensitivity, expanded thermal options, and advanced microfluidics. Supports interrogation of multiple proteins and off-target binding in parallel with up to 192 ligand array spots. Targets drug discovery teams needing analyte sensitivity down to 100-500 Da.
• Carterra LSAXT HT-SPR platform with enhanced sensitivity and faster data collection rate enabling PROTACs, protein-protein inhibitors, kinase, and cytokine screening and characterization. Delivers up to 100x the data in 10% of the time with 1% of sample requirements versus other systems. Targets pharmaceutical and biotech customers.
• Carterra LSA Versatile high-throughput monoclonal antibody characterization platform combining patented flow printing microfluidics with HT-SPR detection. Delivers up to 100x the data in 10% of the time with 1% of sample requirements for detailed antibody kinetic and epitope binning analysis. Used by pharma, biotech, CROs, and research institutions including Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Pennsylvania.
• Sensor Chips Broad range of proprietary biosensor chip chemistries including linear polycarboxylate (HC30M, HC200M), carboxymethylated dextran (CMDP, CMD50M, CMD200M, CMD500M), NiNTA (NiCMDP, NiHC200M), streptavidin (SAP, SAHC30M, SAD200M, RSA200M), Protein A (PAHC200M), and Protein A/G (PAGP, PAGHC30M, PAGHC200M) surfaces for diverse HT-SPR applications. Sold as recurring consumables for installed Carterra instruments.
• Kinetics Data Analysis Software High-throughput kinetics screening software that enables kinetic and steady state affinity analysis on thousands of interactions with automatic data flagging, advanced analysis features for trend and replicate display, and ability to process up to 1,152 samples per unattended run. Current version V.2.0.0.5078 released October 30, 2025. Licensed to pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic customers running HT-SPR assays.
• Epitope Data Analysis Software Software designed to process massive datasets from HT-SPR epitope binning studies where 384 ligands can be tested against 384 analytes, enabling rapid analysis and visualization with heat maps, dendrograms, and network plots. Current version V.2.0.0.5078. Licensed to antibody discovery teams at pharma, biotech, CROs, and research institutions.

Quantifiable outcome

• Saves tens of millions of dollars and months of development time while reducing risk of costly clinical failures by enabling primary screening and target/off-target assessment earlier in drug discovery
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers18 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered notable, core and foundational.

• Charles River LaboratoriesnotableStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Charles River announced a partnership with Synthace at SLAS2026. While this is a Charles River partnership rather than Carterra's directly, Carterra was featured alongside Charles River at SLAS2026 as part of the high-throughput screening ecosystem.
• Revvity (Signals VitroVivo Software)coreTechnology or IntegrationCarterra has partnered with Revvity to integrate its HT-SPR data with Revvity's Signals VitroVivo (formerly Signals Screening) software v2.7 or later. The integration provides a single repository for organizing HT-SPR experimental data, enables comparison with orthogonal methods, and supports built-in intuitive data analysis and search tools. Integration with TIBCO Spotfire is also supported for comprehensive analytics.
• Generate BiomedicinescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerGenerate Biomedicines uses Carterra's LSA platform as an integral part of its machine learning-driven protein design platform. The partnership generates the high-resolution binding data at high throughput needed to train and validate computational protein design models.
• KOLs from Three Major Pharmaceutical Companies and Large CROcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Carterra Vega platform was developed in collaboration with Key Opinion Leaders from three major pharmaceutical companies and a large CRO. The first Vega unit shipped in Q1 2026 to a KOL at a top 10 pharmaceutical company.
• Dragonfly TherapeuticscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDragonfly Therapeutics uses Carterra's LSAXT platform for bispecific antibody discovery and Fc-gamma receptor binding characterization. The case study demonstrated that HT-SPR delivered data quality nearly indistinguishable from their existing biosensor while completing a full characterization in less than a day versus an entire week with traditional methods.
• International Distributor NetworknotableChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCarterra maintains a global distributor network for international markets, with dedicated distributor contact information available at carterra-bio.com/distributor-contact-information/. Regional offices in the US, Germany, and UK support these distribution relationships.
• University of Utah (Prof. Bruce Gale)foundationalStrategic or Co-development PartnerCarterra's patented flow printing technology was invented in the lab of Prof. Bruce Gale at the University of Utah Department of Mechanical Engineering. The technology uses a network of microchannels enabling flow-based array printing of proteins and antibodies on sensor surfaces.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• Wasatch Microfluidics / University of Utah SPR spinouts: Academic and early-stage commercial groups continuing to innovate in SPR microfluidics and array-based biosensing (drawn from the same University of Utah ecosystem that birthed Carterra's flow-printing IP). These emerging entrants represent a long-tail competitive threat as SPR technology matures.

Broad incumbents

• Bruker: Bruker manufactures a broad range of life-science analytical instruments including mass spectrometry and SPR systems, serving the same pharmaceutical and academic research customers as Carterra with a much larger and more diversified product portfolio.
• Sartorius: Sartorius (including the legacy FortéBio Octet bio-layer interferometry line) competes with Carterra in label-free protein interaction analysis for antibody screening and bioprocess analytics, serving overlapping pharma/biotech customers with a broader bioprocessing portfolio.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific: Thermo Fisher offers a wide suite of life-science instruments, consumables, and analytical tools used in drug discovery workflows. While not a direct SPR competitor, it sells alternative characterization and high-throughput screening platforms to the same pharma/biotech buyer base.
• Agilent Technologies: Agilent provides analytical instruments (mass spectrometry, chromatography, plate readers) used in pharmaceutical discovery and characterization. It competes with Carterra for share of biopharma R&D lab budgets and increasingly offers label-free and high-throughput screening solutions.
• Revvity (formerly PerkinElmer Life Sciences): Revvity is both an integration partner of Carterra (Signals VitroVivo software) and a broader life-science instruments and reagents supplier, including the legacy PerkinElmer analytical portfolio. It competes for the same pharma discovery and screening budgets and provides complementary and overlapping analytical platforms.
• Waters Corporation: Waters is a leading analytical instrument manufacturer (chromatography, mass spectrometry, sample management) used in pharmaceutical discovery and QC. It addresses overlapping biopharma R&D customers as Carterra, though with separation- and characterization-focused tools rather than SPR.

Direct peers

• Cytiva (Biacore): Cytiva's Biacore line is the dominant surface plasmon resonance (SPR) platform in pharmaceutical and academic labs. As the incumbent in label-free biomolecular interaction analysis, Biacore directly competes with Carterra's LSA, LSAXT, Ultra, and Vega systems across the same pharma and biotech customer base.

Regional players

• Molecular Devices: Molecular Devices (a Danaher operating company) offers microplate readers, washers, and label-free detection platforms used in drug discovery. Its label-free and high-throughput screening products compete with Carterra's HT-SPR for the same antibody screening and characterization workflows.

Others

• Malvern Panalytical: Malvern Panalytical provides analytical instrumentation for material characterization, including particle sizing and molecular interaction tools. While it does not directly compete in HT-SPR, it addresses adjacent biophysical characterization needs for the same biotech and pharma R&D customers.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/carterra_bio
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/carterra

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds12 records

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Carterra