At a time when the yearly medication cost of an AIDS patient had soared to $20,000 per year, Indian drug major Cipla shocked multinational pharma firms by offering the same for less than a dollar a day per patient. However, Cipla now sees tough times ahead when HIV/AIDS patients will be forced to buy expensive drugs produced by Big Pharma once the wto regime kicks in in 2005. Dr Y.K. Hamied, CMD, Cipla, spoke to Outlook. Excerpts: