text: In the summer of 1981 the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first reported. Two years later the etiological link to AIDS, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was identified. Since the identification of HIV the development of effective antiretroviral drugs and the scientific achievements in HIV research has been enormous. Antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV infections belong to six categories: Nucleoside and nucleotide reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, Non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, entry inhibitors, co-receptor inhibitors and integrase inhibitors. The reverse transcriptase of HIV-1 has been the main foundation for the development of anti-HIV drugs. The first nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor with in vitro anti-HIV activity was zidovudine. Since zidovudine was approved in 1987, six nucleosides and one nucleotide reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) have been approved by FDA. NRTIs approved by the FDA are zidovudine, didanosine, zalcitabine, stavudine, lamivudine, abacavir and emtricitabine and the only nucleotide reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NtRTI) approved is tenofovir (see table 4).