Serbia adds 145 prescription drugs, cuts co-payments
The cut was flagged in early July. It became binding on July 30. The new drug list adds 145 medicines and lowers co-payments on 769 drugs from the A1 list, for one year.
What will a prescription actually cost you now? For a large share of therapies, noticeably less than it did yesterday. Serbia’s new drug list cleared the Government of Serbia on Thursday, July 30, 2026.
That day the government signed off on the rulebook governing the list of medicines prescribed and dispensed at the expense of compulsory health insurance, administered by the Republic Health Insurance Fund (RFZO). The same session amended the decision on maximum drug prices. Two documents, one line item in the household budget.
What the new drug list actually changes
Two things, and both show up on the pharmacy receipt:
- 145 new medicines available on prescription enter circulation
- they include innovative therapies for rare diseases, cancers, cardiovascular conditions and other serious diagnoses
- co-payments have been cut sharply on 769 drugs from the A1 list
The A1 list covers medicines a patient collects at the pharmacy while paying a share of the price. The lower that share, the less is left to settle at the counter.
How far do the co-payments fall?
Under the plan the Health Ministry set out in early July, a patient share that ran between 20 and 40 percent drops to 10 percent. Where it sat between 50 and 90 percent, the ceiling becomes 40 percent.
The announcement covered 12 groups of medicines, among them drugs for the cardiovascular, nervous, genitourinary and respiratory systems, plus antineoplastics and hormone preparations.
In dinars, the picture looks like this. Medicines that cost between 1,700 and 6,000 dinars (roughly 15 to 51 euros) should now cost between 700 and 900 dinars, or about 6 to 8 euros. For a chronic patient refilling every month, that difference adds up over a year.
Blood thinners are a separate win. Anticoagulants have been moved onto the A1 list, so the patient share drops from a few thousand dinars to a few hundred.
Who this reaches
When the measure was announced, officials put the reach at a minimum of 2.5 million households. That is not a narrow target group but most of the country, because the count includes every home with someone on treatment for blood pressure, the heart, breathing or hormones.
The cut was presented in early July by Professor Nebojsa Tasic, assistant health minister, who said at the time:
The measure is limited to one year, but this is only the start of the work on providing greater health and social security
Why it is news only now
Because until July 30 all of it was an announcement. The figures about 10 percent and 700 dinars had been circulating since the first week of the month, yet a pharmacy keeps charging the old rate until the government approves the rulebook. The July 30 decision is the moment the plan turned into binding regulation.
That leaves one date worth writing down. Unless it is extended, the measure expires in a year, which puts co-payments back on the table in the summer of 2027. Until then, the next trip to the pharmacy is the simplest way to check what really changed.
