Knopp Neurosciences is growing. The company started out in April 2004 with two employees in "several cubicles" in a Hazelwood building, said co-founder Dr. Greg Hebrank. Now it occupies 5,000 square feet on the South Side, and employs 15.

President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Michael Bozik wants to grow the company further still.

"Our goal is to be a 500- to 1,000-person neuroscience drug discovery and development company," he said. "That's our vision and that's what we intend to accomplish."

And he wants to do it while keeping the company in Pittsburgh.

Knopp is one of several companies that sit at the intersection of technology and medicine that have recently announced plans to either establish or expand operations in the city, suggesting that Pittsburgh may have turned a corner on the road to growth as a hub of biosciences activity.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association, is preparing to release a report at its annual conference in two weeks that ranks the nation's metro areas as centers of bioscience activity.

Patrick Kelly, vice president for state government relations, said while the report is not yet complete, Pittsburgh "continues to rank in the top 20 in medical devices and research and testing categories."

He also said the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and its sister organizations in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, established with funds from the Tobacco Settlement Act of 2001, are "viewed as a national best practice" by industry observers in other states, a model for nurturing biotechnology development.

Dennis M. Flynn, president of the organization's Pennsylvania chapter, said, "all of the right groundwork is [in Pittsburgh] -- the technology, the universities. You've got good management, and you've got a good work force.

"The funding is also falling into place," he added, citing a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers that named Pittsburgh the second fastest-growing area in the country in venture capital investment for tech firms.

Knopp's funders have include local tech investors LaunchCyte and Innovation Works, along with Saturn Capital and Saturn Partners II of Boston, and Kramer Capital Partners of Stamford, CT.

Dr. Bozik gave special kudos to Jeff McCormick, managing partner of Saturn Partners II, for taking a longer term view than many venture capital investors.

Dr. Bozik acknowledges that the growth he envisions for Knopp comprises not only technological challenges, but human resource challenges. While Pittsburgh's biosciences sector is growing, it is not on a level with some other cities, and that can make recruitment harder.

"The reality (is) that if you go to Boston or La Jolla or San Francisco and if the biotech startup that you joined there folds and shuttters, there are 50 other opportunities there," he said. That can make those locations much more attractive to employees.

Mary Del Brady, president and chief executive officer of Redpath Integrated Pathology, Inc. echoed Dr. Bozik's observation.

The clinical testing company opened in June 2004 with two employees working in a 2,000-square-foot former doctor's office on the North Side. This month, Redpath moved into a 20,000-square-foot space in the Strip District.

"It's more than we need, but it allows for our planned growth," said Ms. Brady.

That growth has accelerated recently. The company ended 2007 with 30 employees, and now has 51. Ms. Brady anticipates having 60 by year-end.

Redpath also recently completed a first round of funding, during which Ms. Brady said the question of relocating did come up.

"Pittsburgh right now has a very early stage biotechnology market, so it's not as easy to set up a company here," she said.

While she would not say "never" to the possibility of leaving the city, Mrs. Brady did say that Redpath's move to their new space represents a commitment to the area: "We're here."

Having companies get their start in Pittsburgh and decide to stay here is only one route to growing the city's presence in the biosciences. Another is to have such companies located elsewhere to establish operations here, either by relocating or expanding.

E-Wise Inc. is the newly established U.S. subsidiary of E-Wise bv, a company based in the Netherlands that bills itself as an "online medical publisher and knowledge provider."

Its move to Pittsburgh resulted from a chance encounter in London. In December, Frank Bilotto, formerly of Vivisimo, the Squirrel Hill-based online search company, gave a presentation in which he spoke about the need for "vertical search," a way of searching the Internet that would yield more tightly focused results. For instance, on a Web site devoted to golf, the results of a search for "tiger" "better all be about Tiger Woods."

After his presentation, a member of the audience approached him and said, "I have invented exactly what you are talking about."

The audience member was Hans Van Veggel, the founder and chief executive officer E-Wise. Its Web site, myebmsearch.com, is designed to deliver tightly focused search results of more than 19,000 medical journals. As it happened, the company was preparing to expand into the United States, and the encounter led to Mr. Bilotto becoming the chief executive officer of E-Wise, Inc.

Choosing Mr. Bilotto as CEO is one thing, but choosing Pittsburgh as the U.S. headquarters location was another. Mr. Bilotto said that other cities were under review, but that he made the decision easy, telling Mr. VanVeggel, "If you want me, I'm not leaving Pittsburgh."

Mr. Bilotto is conducting his own search these days, for office space and employees. He hopes to employ 50 by year-end.