The major costs of paid assistance were related to personal assistant, home care services and child care.
To cushion patients, the company recently increased its co-pay assistance to as much as $1,200 a month.
Some drug companies give money to charities that are allowed to provide co-pay assistance to such patients.
Analysts at Leerink Swann recently said a backlash against co-pay assistance might be inevitable but is not likely to happen in 2011.
Co-pay assistance can even increase revenues by getting more patients to use a drug, for which insurance companies must then pay.
For very expensive drugs, co-pay assistance is almost de rigueur, because in some cases co-payments can be up to 20 percent of the price of the drug.
The co-pay assistance is aimed at ensuring that differences in co-payments between the two drugs "aren't driving medical decisions," said Joshua J. Ofman, vice president for reimbursement and payment policy at Amgen.
Drug companies are not allowed to provide co-pay assistance to such patients because it is considered a kickback, an illegal financial inducement to get someone to use a product for which the government is then billed.
"It seems the best strategy for a pharmaceutical company is to price their drug as high as they possibly can and offer that co-pay assistance broadly" to insulate consumers, said Joshua Schimmer, biotechnology analyst at Leerink Swann, an investment bank.
Have you appealed a denied health insurance claim, with or without paid assistance?
And we know that for virtually any kind of paid assistance, the price is shocking.
