Heart drug designed for U.S. blacks a cheaper option

According to researchers a new heart-failure drug designed especially for blacks could reduce the amount it costs to treat the disease by as much as 34 percent.

The researchers say they found that patients receiving the combination drug BiDil, in addition to standard therapy averaged $5,997 in heart-failure-related costs a year, excluding the cost of the medication, compared with $9,144 in patients taking a placebo.

The study was funded by the drug's manufacturer Nitromed.

This year BiDil became the first medicine approved for one specific race by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

It has been found that African Americans are more likely than others to develop heart failure and to die early from the disease.

Dr. Jalal Ghali, a cardiologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, says the drug reduced costs in addition to improving outcome; it usually costs more to help patients fare better.

Ghali helped lead an earlier study showing the drug was safe and effective.

The researchers carefully examined earlier data, analyzing how often patients made unscheduled doctor's visits or hospital emergency room trips and noted how long patients were hospitalized for.

The costs were estimated using data from Medicare, the U.S. insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

It appears that overall, annual health-care costs for patients taking BiDil were 22 percent lower than those taking placebo, an average of $15,384 compared to $19,728.

Dr. Derek Angus, the study's lead author and a professor of Critical Care Medicine and Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh, says that although the data only covered one year, they projected the drug would still save money over time.

The drug combines two generic medicines that dilate blood vessels and is designed to treat congestive heart failure, which weakens the heart over time and impairs the heart's ability to pump.

According to the American Heart Association, as many as 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with heart failure, and about 3.1 percent to 3.5 percent of them are African American.

The association's president-elect, Raymond Gibbons, says the findings are impressive, but does question whether they will be sustained under real-life use.

He says patients participating in a study are more likely to take their drugs, and the average daily drug cost of $6.38 is likely to pose a substantial barrier for many patients, which may lead to lower compliance and less impressive results.

Dr. Angus agrees and says doctors should help make sure patients take their medicines as prescribed.

The study is published in the December 13 issue of Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.