Cisplatin has been used to treat cancer since the 1970s. Since then, many other platinum-containing cytostatic drugs have been developed, such as triplatinNC, a highly charged complex that contains three ligand-bridged platinum atoms. Unlike cisplatin, this drug also directly inhibits metastasis. The reason for this seems to be modulation of the geometry of a sugar component of heparan sulfate, an important component of the extracellular matrix, reports a research team in the journal Angewandte Chemie.