In 1987, the FDA approved the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS, the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor zidovudine (AZT). AZT decreased opportunistic infections and deaths from AIDS, as well as prevented perinatal transmission of HIV. But it was not without side effects, some of which were serious. And, unfortunately, HIV drug resistance developed around 1990.
Other NRTIs became available and were taken with AZT until 1995, when the first protease inhibitor, saquinavir,