A heart failure drug shown effective in African-Americans stands to become the first ethnically targeted drug, if a Lexington biotechnology firm is successful in its bid for federal approval.It would be the first drug targeted at patients on the basis of ancestry -- a dangerous precedent, some ethicists and activists say, because a new marriage of race and genetics could distract from the real causes of disease.The tricky part of this emerging debate is that the drug, BiDil, seems to work, extending the lives of African-Americans who sustain heart failure. The latest trial of BiDil was halted last month by an outside panel that decided the drug was so effective it was unconscionable to let some patients continue to get a placebo instead of BiDil. An earlier trial found the drug was of relatively little benefit to white patients.
