Weill Cornell’s Medicine scientist claim to have discovered a new treatment for osteoporosis, which targets the blood vessels inside of bone, a molecule that promotes the growth of those blood vessels and reverses the weakening of bones and helps fracture, heals.

According to Weill Cornell scientists, SLIT3 is a protein molecule which helps to boost nerve growth. The researchers found it by examining mice that had abnormally high bone mass as a result of being cause to lack another protein called SHN3. When the team studied the bone-forming cell from those animals, they found that the cells produced solid amounts of nearly every substance that’s known to advance the growth of blood vessels in bone. But they also produced high amounts of SLIT3.

“We next asked if we could use SLIT3 to treat mice with the skeletal disease, especially osteoporosis and fracture healing,” said co-author Matthew Greenblatt, M.D., an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell, in the statement.

So the team tried it in a mouse model of postmenopausal osteoporosis. The test has shown tremendous response by counteracting bone loss the mice had gone through.

The attempt to fight osteoporosis by finding new treatments has been profitable for some companies. Among them is Amgen, which is anticipated to bring in $4 billion in sales this year for its osteoporosis drug Prolia.