When it came time for his two-year-old biotech company, BioAnalysis LLC, to find a new headquarters in 2021, Dr. Lake Paul had more in mind than just real estate.

“It’s like when you are buying a house; some folks like it staged, and some folks can imagine it,” he says. “I’m the kind of person who likes to see the empty shelves.” For Paul, a second part of that vision was finding the right community, a neighborhood where he could plant roots and give back.

That search led him to Kensington — where, over the past four years, BioAnalysis has rapidly expanded while taking on a range of civic-minded projects. The company’s team members have provided STEM instruction at afterschool programs, organized donation drives, and opened doors for aspiring scientists from underprivileged backgrounds. Despite that, Paul is quick to say his firm is neither a nonprofit nor a B Corporation, “I can’t be altruistic to the point of being poor,” Paul says. “We have to earn money to employ people and ensure that every BioAnalysis employee earns a livable wage.”

Having grown to about 30 employees and 20,000 square feet of lab and office space inside MaKen Studios South on the 3400 block of I Street, the company is trying to become a high-tech anchor for the neighborhood. Through its core business, BioAnalysis also works toward a deeper mission. “We’re supporting the new frontier of science,” Paul says, referring to the company’s key role in the pipeline of cell and gene therapy treatments.

As a contract research organization, or CRO, BioAnalysis is hired by scientists and pharmaceutical firms for what is effectively outsourcing. They take on a specific part of a client’s drug development process, such as quality assurance, data analytics, or even the lab-based manufacturing of the treatment itself. (Cell and gene therapy involves the process of modifying biological materials, and then introducing them into the body to fight a disease.) “Our clients range from preclinical researchers all the way up to commercial treatments with FDA approval.”

While BioAnalysis is inextricably linked with the scientific community’s quest to deliver novel medicines to patients, especially those living with rare diseases, Paul hopes to parlay the company’s success into a windfall for the current residents of Kensington.

“For us to make a little nanometer of a contribution to science, and to do that life-saving work in Kensington, it shows that good things can come to Philly,” he says.

Rooted in diversity

“I’ve seen what happens in neighborhoods when people do come in and invest,” Paul says.

In the mid-1990s, he moved to the United States from his native Guyana, a country in South America with close ties to the Caribbean. Paul spent his formative years in Miami, FL, where his family settled in Liberty City, a predominately African American neighborhood that was synonymous at the time with a public housing project. Often, Paul would go partying with friends in Wynwood, just up the road — where Miami’s former garment district was sparsely populated and full of neglected warehouses. “Now you can’t find anything for less than $1.5 million,” he says.

Of course, the “revitalization” of Wynwood (FL, not PA) and Liberty City, like the story of so many majority-minority neighborhoods around the country, resulted in the displacement of longtime residents. Paul thinks about co-authoring a different version of the story in Kensington.

“The people who live here don’t want to see an open-air drug market. They would love to see good businesses thrive,” he says.

“For us to make a little nanometer of a contribution to science, and to do that life-saving work in Kensington, it shows that good things can come to Philly.” — Dr. Lake Paul, BioAnalysis

After graduating from the University of Miami in 2000, Paul got his PhD in structural biology and biophysics from Purdue University in Indiana. When he stayed on campus for a couple of post-doc jobs, he experienced a wave of racism as an emerging scientist. “Every time my boss went to shake my hand, he thought I was gonna crush it,” he says. “I was even called the N-word to my face.” Another time, he was explicitly told to act less boisterous and more like another Black scientist in the lab, who was soft-spoken.

Receiving a pink slip led to a realization: “I can run one of these companies better than my bosses,” he says.

Prior to founding BioAnalysis, Paul moved to the Philly area in 2018 and took a job at another biotech company, without knowing about the city’s reputation as “Cellicon Valley” or the concentration of cell and gene therapy researchers that were already here.

While it took a few more years to break out on his own, he set out to create a new model for inclusivity — and also, interpersonal interaction — which would be the antithesis of what he encountered in his own early career stops in his own business.

“I only had $60,000 to my name when I started this company. I bootstrapped it,” says Paul. “I’m trying to create the culture that would have been my utopia for a workplace.”

Forging a new path

Breaking with tradition is nothing new for Paul. He hails from a family of entrepreneurs. If not for his exposure to Upward Bound — a decades-old college preparatory program for high schoolers from urban areas — Paul says that he’d never have considered the career path he chose.

“I’m a product of affirmative action,” he says. “I want to make that loud and clear.”

In a political moment when diversity and inclusion efforts are under attack, Paul continues to double down. His staff is more than one-third people of color; half of them are women. Additionally, BioAnalysis participates in a number of the internship and jobs-training programs designed to inspire more local young people to enter the local biotech space. For example, the company is one of the sites for the Wistar Institute’s biomedical technician training program.

Paul’s commitment to diversity — which won him a 2025 Diversity in Business Award from the Philadelphia Business Journal — doesn’t end at the hiring process or once an intern walks through the doors. He believes that the company culture he’s created, providing a more fulfilling — and fun — workplace, encourages staff stick around in biotech for the long haul.

“Contract research organizations have a bad reputation for being revolving doors, but we have a high retention rate, especially with young folks,” he says. “It’s because we create an environment where they can be heard, be challenged, and can be guaranteed to do good work.”

And the company will continue to lean into its civic-mindedness toward Kensington. In addition to offering employees paid time off for community service, Paul is forging more partnerships with nonprofits and neighborhood groups with each passing month.

“This city has given me a lot,” says Paul. “This is me giving back.”

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