How an Indian tycoon fought Big Pharma to sell AIDS drugs for $1 a day

How an Indian tycoon fought Big Pharma to sell AIDS drugs for $1 a day

Dr. Yusuf Hamied of Cipla was a prolific reader of medical journals, with an annual subscription budget that topped $150,000 (Rs1 crore at current rates). In 1991, Rama Rao, the research head of an Indian government laboratory, told Hamied that he had developed a chemical synthesis of AZT, or azidothymidine, and wanted Cipla to manufacture it.