Infection with human papillomaviruses (HPVs) is a major public health burden worldwide and is associated with a variety of epithelial lesions, including benign warts and several types of anogenital tumours, particularly cervical carcinoma. From available data it is clear that members of the HPV family are important human pathogens. Prevention or elimination of these infections would not only benefit the numerous patients with benign lesions, but ultimately should reduce the incidence of cervical cancer and possibly other epithelial cancers as well. Although prophylactic vaccines to block genital HPV infection have become available, it is not certain if they would be of benefit to those already infected. Therefore, the enormous and growing population of infected individuals would benefit from papillomavirus-specific therapy. In this review, we will discuss the functions of the viral proteins that appear to be the most appropriate for the development of therapeutics aimed at the treatment of viral infection and virus-induced cancers.