The effective and preventive treatment of HIV is one of the difficult challenges worldwide. It requires the development of an effective prophylactic strategy to prevent HIV/AIDS. ATV has been successfully used in treatment-native and experienced HIV patients. ATV belongs to Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) class II drug with poor water solubility and high permeability (log P of 4.11). ATV undergoes rapid first-pass metabolism and P-gp efflux, leading eventually to marked reduction in the drug oral bioavailable fraction (i.e. 60%) in humans and animals. To circumvent the a fore mentioned limitations various formulation approaches of ATV have been reported like, Nanocrystals, tablets and capsules but all with limited fruition. It has been well reported in the literature that daily dose of ATV causes serious liver problems, specifically hepatotoxicity. As a shortfall for all the conventional oral dosage forms, the duration of action is limited since the absorption of the drug depends on the resident time of the drug in the gastrointestinal tract. In order to fulfill the need of a long-term treatment with anti HIV agents, where most of them suffer from the shortcoming of frequent administration and plasma concentration fluctuation, it is desirable to have novel drug-delivery carriers such as NPs. This study aimed to develop Atazanavir -biodegradable gold (Au) nanoparticles by using pectin as a reducer and stabilizer. ATZ-GNPs were prepared by the slightly modified Turkevich et al method. ATZ-GNPs were optimized using Box Behnken design for independent variables gold chloride (A), pectin (B) and pH range (C).