THE poster on the meeting room wall of award-winning Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS) reads simply: Creating A World Class Business.
It's a mantra that has been at the heart of this company's ethos ever since it was established in 1991, serving as a timely reminder of exactly where AMS wants to position itself.
It might be based in the tiny Cheshire town of Winsford, but AMS's ambitions are on a truly global scale.
And, over the past few years, it has become increasingly evident that this £16.9m turnover company - which makes advanced wound care dressings using the latest science and technology to speed recovery - has established itself worldwide with considerable style.
It was its innovation and ambition - among many more first-class attributes - that prompted the judges at this year's M.E.N. Business Of The Year Awards to crown the company winner in the turnover between £10m and £25m category.
For the past seven years, the company's chief executive has been Dr Don Evans, who moved to Winsford after more than two decades working for global health care giant Johnson & Johnson.
Dr Evans explains: "I'd got to the stage, with more than 20 years working for a multi- national, when I decided that I wanted to go into the world of publicly owned companies. I wanted to put all the first-class training and experience that I'd accrued with Johnson & Johnson to good use with a small but growing technology business - and AMS ticked all the right boxes.
"Those first few years were about survival, but I'm delighted with the strong position the company is in now - and we are ambitious for further growth."
Dr Evans was born in Brisbane and, after completing a degree in chemical engineering in Australia, moved to Canada, where he undertook both his Master's and PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto.
It was while he was studying in Toronto that he met his English wife, Pam, who was studying for a PhD in Russian literature at the time.
Dr Evans' life has been rooted firmly in England ever since, and these days he divides his time between his flat in Winsford and the family home in the New Forest, in Hampshire.
He is understandably immensely proud of his three children - 31-year-old Richard who works as an accountant for business advisers Deloitte, 27-year-old Anthony, who has completed his PhD in economics in Washington, and 26-year-old Alison, who has recently completed her Master's in information services at University College London.
When he's not working, he likes nothing more than to indulge his passion for skiing in the French Alps or supporting the Australian cricket and rugby league teams.
And he's no less passionate about turning AMS into a world-class business.
He adds: "To use a cricket analogy - what we've been through at AMS over the past seven years is like seeing off the opening bowlers on a pretty sticky pitch. We are now in a position where we can enjoy hitting the ball around a bit as we consolidate our position.
"AMS is undoubtedly doing well, and we now want to utilise our position to drive it forward into a truly global force."
AMS markets a range of products which fall into two categories: advanced woundcare dressings which use `moist wound healing' to speed recovery and another range of products which promote wound healing during surgery.
Many of these products use an extract of seaweed to speed up the healing process, as well as a minute quantity of silver, which has been proven to be highly effective in preventing infections such as MRSA.
Dr Evans added: "A catchy slogan which we sometimes use to let people know about what we do is `seaweed, silver and superglue'.
"The silver kills the bugs and the seaweed facilitates the `moist' wound-healing process which has been proven to be the most effective treating for ulcers and other infected wounds, with minimal pain and scarring.
"The superglue aspect arises as our other product range effectively sticks together wounds during surgical procedures."
The company's success has led to it manufacturing its products for a number of major international woundcare companies, under their brands, which are then sold into hospitals, nursing homes and community care.
Today, 25 per cent of all its sales are made in America, and 38 per cent in Europe, with the remaining sales in Britain and the rest of the world.
Additionally, AMS now sells a range of standard woundcare dressing products direct to the NHS under its ActivHeal brand, and Dr Evans believes that there is even more potential in this market.
He added: "We believe that our ActivHeal range offers potential savings of £25m a year in woundcare budgets, without ever compromising patient care.
"At the moment, our products are used by 100 of the 800 NHS Trusts in Britain, and we aim to increase this.
"Going forward, we also want to broaden our direct presence in Europe and get into more operating theatres, which represent a very good market for adhesives.
"Earlier this year, we received the green light to market our wound healing gel containing silver in the United States, and we anticipate that this will open up an even bigger market for us over the next year."
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