Kaštel d.d. (plc), Chemical and Pharmaceutical Preparations Factory

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The Factory was founded in Karlovac in 1920 by the Zagreb-based company ‘Isis’ and the Budapest-based ‘Chinoin’. It began operations in 1921 in a castle on an aristocratic estate formerly owned by Count Nugent. It initially produced extracts from domestic herbs, and later, preparations in the form of tablets, syrups, and injections.

The product advertisements were directed towards doctors, who published their expert opinions and experience with the preparations in medical journals.

In 1927, Kaštel moved to a newly constructed factory building in Zagreb, at Prilaz baruna Filipovića 25, which has been the headquarters of Pliva to this day. In the 1930s, the Factory launched a research program and began collaborating with Vladimir Prelog, a future Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, becoming one of the first in the world to start producing antibacterial drugs.