LONDON: Scientists have developed a vitamin D pill to treat advanced prostate cancer. Exposure to Vitamin D from sunlight is known to improve the prognosis of certain cancers. US firm Novacea has produced a pill that delivers concentrated dose of the vitamin without running the risk of side-effects from an overdose.

Chemistry and Industry magazine reports if clinical trials of the drug-Asentar (DN-101)-are successful, it could be available by 2009. The drug would be given to patients in advanced stages of the disease, along with chemotherapy drugs.

Nick James, cancer expert at the University of Birmingham, said the drug had produced impressive results in preliminary phase two trials. He said patients taking the drug lived for an average of an extra nine months longer than those taking another chemotherapy drug -taxotere-alone.

In another study, researchers have discovered a modified form of vitamin D that can help stimulate bone growth, a new study shows. The compound may lead to new treatments for the brittle bone disease osteoporosis, according to the report published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Study co-author Hector F. DeLuca, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and his colleagues are studying a form of vitamin D called 2MD. "This compound is modified in three ways from the natural vitamin D hormone."With the modifications, 2MD appears to boost bone growth by stimulating bone-building cells.