For years chemotherapy regimens were the only possibility of treating malignant lymphoma. Although good responses could be achieved, a substantial proportion of patients are still not cured. Rituximab's development as an anti-CD20 antibody heralded a new era in treatment approaches for non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). The evolution of rituximab has led to intense interest in this type of therapeutic approach and to development and approval of the radioimmunoconjugates of rituximab and fully humanised antibodies. In recent years, the knowledge of the cellular and molecular biology of distinct types of NHLs have led to the development of a new class of drugs that specifically targets unique disease-specific pathways. Bendamustine and proteasome inhibitors are already approved in the treatment of individual entities of lymphoma. Histone deacetylase inhibitors, idiotype vaccination and other molecules show promising results in the lymphoma research that they are being verified in ongoing clinical trials.