Novartis AG will pay out-of-pocket costs for non-Medicare patients who use the company’s multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya when the drug, to be priced at $4,000 a month, goes on sale in the U.S. this week.

The Swiss drugmaker will pay as much as $800 monthly in co- payments for Gilenya, the first oral medicine for the condition, the company said in an e-mail. Novartis will also help patients navigate testing and monitoring recommended by U.S. regulators who approved Gilyena on Sept. 22, paying as much as $600 per patient for that expense.

While many drugmakers provide medicine for the poor and help people with insurance, Novartis’s plan isn’t contingent on income or medical history, said Darlene Jody, head of Novartis’s MS medical unit. Andrew Weiss, an analyst at Bank Vontobel AG in Zurich, predicts peak sales of $3 billion a year for Gilenya, which will compete with Biogen Idec Inc.’s Avonex, an injectable drug that generated $2.3 billion in sales last year.

“It’s a pretty aggressive approach,” said Ira Loss, an analyst with Washington Analysis. “It seems like an enhancement of what was required. Maybe Novartis decided to build on that and make it a patient-friendly program. My hat’s off to them.”