Pleco Therapeutics BV has raised €17.3 million (US$17.1 million) in equity, loan and grant financing to move its lead program into a phase I trial next year. The company, based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, is bringing a fresh perspective to bear on a longstanding therapeutic concept – that cancer can be tackled by metal chelation. Quite a number of agents have entered the clinic over the years, but none as yet has delivered any useful outcome.