PLANS are under way by Nycomed Amersham to redevelop its office and laboratory complex accommodation at Pollards Wood, which had been leased to Ortho Clinical Diagnostics since the 1990s.

Pollards Wood, off Nightingales Lane, Little Chalfont, was originally the mansion house and estate of the Bertram Mills Circus family.

The keys were formally handed over to Mikael Gordon, vice-president laboratory products at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech by Ortho Clinical Diagnostics' facilities manger, Dave Peters, last December.

Ortho leased the building to carry out some of the company's research and development into new diagnostic tests for illness.

Nycomed Amersham has outline planning permission to extend the facilities at Pollards Wood, to include converting some of the existing laboratory space into high-grade office accommodation, remove some of the other older buildings and to landscape part of the grounds.

The company will be meeting neighbours to discuss its plans before submitting a formal application.

If approved, Nycomed hopes to complete building work by mid-2002, when staff from its cramped global head office at Amersham Place will be transferred to Pollards Wood.

Nycomed Amersham has been taking informed advice on plans for its $4 billion (£2.7 billion) flotation of its bio-technology business, Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, on the Nasdaq in the US because of current conditions in the market.

A spokesman for the company said: "It is going to have to depend entirely on what happens in the market.

"We are getting everything ready for the flotation but we may have to wait a little while before we push the button to go."