PHILADELPHIA -- Within miles of the convention center where thousands of executives, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts attended BIO 2005 last week, the reasons for Philadelphia's leadership in biotechnology are obvious.

Housed all around Philadelphia are such household names as Bayer, Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline. All have been around for decades, spawning not only new drugs but also money, interest and spinoffs that have made Pennsylvania's largest city one of the nation's hotbeds for biotech.

It is a story that Pittsburgh has yet to tell, local biotech proponents agree.

With a history rooted in Big Steel and Fortune 500 manufacturing companies, the city missed out on the life sciences front for the better part of the past century.

Playing catch-up, they maintain, means something different than Philadelphia or a comparable life sciences player, Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota, where medical giants and start-ups have long been a part of that region's landscape.

What it will take, local proponents say, is money and talent. -- both of which Pittsburgh has, only in smaller doses than bigger biotech regions.

But most of all, they say, it's going to take time and patience in a region antsy for success.

It's not hard to understand why Philadelphia ranked so high in Santa Monica, Calif., think tank Milken Institute's recent study of booming life science regions, boasting 53,500 jobs in 2003 in an area whose borders take in Delaware and southern New Jersey.

Philadelphia came in at No. 3, trailing Boston and San Francisco as places where life sciences -- which includes pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotech and research and development in those fields -- has the biggest economic impact.

And the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was not far behind, at No. 8, with its crop of medical device firms and 23,352 jobs tied to its life sciences hub.

Pittsburgh by contrast, wasn't on the list, released at last week's BIO 2005 conference.

Despite nearly $1 billion in federal research dollars pumped each year into its research institutions -- a generator of ideas and technologies, which in turn, lead to companies and jobs -- the region is still ways off from grasping that coveted label of "life sciences hub."

But observers say while Pittsburgh, which employs nearly 4,000 in this growing field, may never achieve the status Philadelphia has in biotech and pharmaceuticals, it may be just one or two company successes away from the biotech big time.

It's getting there that has proven the greatest challenge.

Anchored by the giant University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, as well as three thriving medical device firms, McKesson Automation, Medrad and Respironics, and a smattering of upstarts, Pittsburgh is nothing to sniff at.

It's just that Pittsburgh has only coordinated its efforts in recent years, since the advent of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse in 2002, in hopes of capitalizing on world class research and universities and growing strengths in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and cancer research.

By contrast, Philadelphia, backed by eight of the nation's 10 largest pharmaceutical companies, also has been in the life sciences game a lot longer.

"You can trace Philly's life science cluster ... to the pharmaceutical industry, which goes back to the 19th century," said Ross DeVol, who authored the Milken study.

That's a 150-year head start, he said, allowing it to grow a critical mass of leading medical research facilities, related companies and a pool of talented scientists and managers to man them.

Philadelphia's life sciences sector, which includes biotech, pharmaceutical, medical devices as well as R&D work, is way ahead of Pittsburgh because its pipeline of life science firms, workers and dollars is much bigger and more established, said Richard Overmoyer, deputy secretary for technology at the state's department of community and economic development.

Such a critical mass is still a ways away in Pittsburgh. From lawyers, accountants and a range of investors to a support system that connects all the dots, it is just "beginning to come into place here," said Art Boni, deputy director of the Don Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and former head of Pitt's office of technology management.

Part of what Minneapolis and Philadelphia also have going for them, DeVol said, is luck.

When medical device titan Medtronic was born in the 1950s in Minneapolis, it helped build on existing assets of two world-class research institutions, the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities.

Over the years, other companies and start-ups were spawned, generating what locals like to call medical alley, linking the two hubs of its medical device and biotech industries.

Medtronic is now a $10 billion multinational medical conglomerate, but its growth, like that of the rest of the Twin Cities life sciences industries, did not happen overnight, said Gene Goddard, a bioscience industry specialist at Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development.

"We're not trying to be home to Johnson & Johnson and Merck," Goddard said. "But we are trying to build synergies with companies and research institutes based on what our niches are."

Pittsburgh, unlike the Twin Cities and Philadelphia, lacks "anchors" -- the big companies that serve as a catalyst to an industry's growth. Such anchors tend to produce a cycle of business partners, talented managers and spinoffs, which in turn serve as magnets for investors in search of hot new technologies and companies.

Doros Platika, president and chief executive officer of the Greenhouse, said the local industry is just at the beginning stages of that growth cycle.

"When you know you've made it is when you've created an anchor company -- not just a company that's successful, but [one that] becomes the center" and generates new companies and new entrepreneurs, he said.

But even that takes time, said industry insiders.

"If we want [a company] to employ 500 people, we should just open McDonald's franchises," said Carolyn Green, director of enterprise development, health sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh. "It's a challenge. If we had talented people sitting on street corners, my job would be easy."

But DeVol said what Pittsburgh could use in trying to build a viable life science sector is an "orchestra leader."

Despite its strong economic development infrastructure, the region could be shooting itself in the foot by having a mass of groups and people focused on growing the industry, with no one central overseer or director, he said. "There's leadership," he said. "But it seems fragmented.

Others believe money, not leadership and focus, are the real stumbling block locally.

"We need money and business partnerships to take things to the next level," said Boni. "That's where the Greenhouse can really help."

Platika and his team are courting life science-related firms large and small, and later this summer plan to launch what it calls the "Evergreen" initiative aimed at luring older, larger and more established biotech firms and venture capital investment to the region.

For its part, the state is offering incentives for blue-chip venture capital firms to invest in regional start-ups. And UPMC Health Ventures, an investing arm of the health- care giant, is making a lot of early-stage investments in the region.

Still, it appears a big breakout in life sciences in Pittsburgh remains a waiting game.

"It's just a matter of time" said Boni, adding that the region should "manage its expectations" as it looks for biotech to take off. "We've made tremendous progress."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published June 28, 2005) Carolyn Green is director of enterprise development, health sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh. The version of this story originally published on June 26, 2005 said incorrectly she headed another organization.