It all began in 1933. In a pharmacy in the town of Lure, in north-eastern France, Joseph Frechin merged his dispensary with a business manufacturing pharmaceutical supplies for people. He called it “Laboratoires biochimiques de l’Est”.

An entrepreneurial man, Joseph started using the antiseptic properties of oxyquinoline to treat animals. The remedy, baptised “Vétoquinol”, quickly made a name for itself, and Joseph Frechin added a veterinary department to his laboratory.