By Ian Lyall, Proactive Investors, For Thisismoney.co.uk

Published: 07:38 EST, 9 March 2015 | Updated: 08:48 EST, 9 March 2015

Midatech Pharma chief executive, Jim Phillips has big ambitions for the life sciences company which listed on AIM late last year.

He wants it to be one of the few success stories of the life sciences industry, which has had more than its fair share of failures over the past three decades.

The US has created some monsters of new wave medicines the grande dames Amgen and Genzyme and more recently Biogen Idec, Gilead and Celgene.

Big ambitions: Midatechis at the forefront of nano-medicine

While not strictly a biotechnology firm - as we'll see later, it is at the forefront of nano-medicine - Midatech still wants to emulate the American model.

Phillips is not shy in revealing this means building a business valued at billions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions or tens of millions as it is today.

To help it do this it recruited an institutional shareholder base that understands and backs the Midatech model.

At the IPO last December, which raised 32milllion of new money, it brought in the influential Neil Woodford, who used to run one of Britain's largest funds for Invesco but is now going it alone.

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SMALL CAP SHARE IDEAS: Midatech Pharma has ambitions to be a billion pound firm