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After Darrell Cooper was diagnosed with heart failure five years ago, doctors tried an array of medications to keep his blood pressure under control.

Nothing worked.

Then his cardiologist handed him a sample pack of pills, saying it might be the answer, since the medicine was developed for patients like him. Patients who happened to be black.

"I took them and came back in a month and my blood pressure was normal," said Cooper, 55, a former Newark resident now living in the Poconos. "I just felt a lot better.

The drug, called BiDil, was the first race-specific medication to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. BiDil helps relax blood vessels, making it easier for the heart to pump.

The study that led to its approval in June 2005 -- called the African American Heart Failure Trial -- had shown dramatic results, reducing deaths 43 percent in patients who took it. Hospitalizations for these patients, all of whom were black, dropped 33 percent.

But after three years on the market, BiDil has failed to live up to...