About the Authors

Paul Emery

p.emery@leeds.ac.uk

Affiliations Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom, NIHR Leeds Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, United Kingdom

William Rigby

Affiliation The Geisel School of Medicine at Darthmouth, Lebanon, New Hampshire, United States of America

Paul P. Tak

Current address: GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage, United Kingdom

Affiliation Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Thomas Dörner

Affiliation Charité University Hospitals and DRFZ, Berlin, Germany

Ewa Olech

Affiliation University of Nevada School of Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America

Carmen Martin

Affiliation Roche Products, Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Laurie Millar

Affiliation Roche Products, Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Helen Travers

Affiliation Roche Products, Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Elena Fisheleva

Affiliation Roche Products, Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

This study was funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche, the employer of Carmen Martin, Laurie Millar, Helen Travers, and Elena Fisheleva. Helen Travers holds stock in Roche. PE has provided expert advice and undertaken clinical trials for Pfizer, Merck Sharpe Dome, Abbvie, UCB, Roche, BMS and Novartis. WR has served as a consultant for Roche. PPT has served as a consultant for Roche/Genentech and became an employee of GlaxoSmithKline after completion of this work. TD has served as a consultant for Roche and has received speakers' bureau honoraria from Roche. EO has received research funding from Abbvie, Genentech, Pfizer, UCB and Vertex, consultancy fees from Abbvie, Crescendo, Genentech, Janssen, Pfizer and UCB, and speakers' bureau honoraria from Abbvie, Crescendo and UCB. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PE WR PPT CM LM HT EF. Performed the experiments: PE WR CM LM EF. Analyzed the data: PE WR CM LM HT EF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PE WR PPT TD EO. Wrote the paper: PE WR PPT TD EO CM LM HT EF.