Eu Tong Sen, (the last two words meaning "caring") was founded as a centre for prescribing herbal cures  to opium addicts. A miner Eu Kong, a Nan Hai Cantonese, opened a medical shop in Gopeng in 1879 and in Ipoh and Kampar in 1881. At 21, Eu Tong Sen (1877-1941), took over his father's business with the financial support of his courtesan step-mother Tan Kuai and turned it into a Chinese pharmaceuticals empire with branches all over Asia.

After a fire razed the first premise in Ipoh, the present building was erected in 1907. A footbridge at the first floor level connects the main building to a store at 2 Birch Street. Eu Tong Sen O.B.E was a leading tin-miner, Vice-president of Malaya's first Anti-Opium Conference, the first Chinese Federal Councillor and a major benefactor to Raffles College and Hong Kong University.

The first person to own a motocar in Perak, he had seven wives and as many palatial villas in Ipoh, Gopeng, Kampar, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong.