Footnotes

• Handling editor Josef S Smolen

• Contributors All authors contributed to one or more of the following aspects of the manuscript: conception, acquisition of data, drafting and revising the article.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests CM had congress support from Actelion and Roche, consultancy fees from Boehringer Ingelheim and Geneva Romfarm; RD had research support from Actelion and Pfizer; BM had grant/research support from AbbVie, Protagen, Novartis, and congress support from Pfizer, Roche, Actelion, and MSD, speakers honorary from Novartis. In addition, BM has a patent mir-29 for the treatment of systemic sclerosis registered (US8247389, EP2331143). OD had speaker fees from Actelion, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Medscape, Novartis, Roche, Menarini, Mepha, MSD, iQone, Pfizer, consultancy fees from Abbvie, Actelion, Acceleron Pharma, Amgen, AnaMar, Bayer, Baecon Discovery, Blade Therapeutics, Boehringer, CSL Behring, ChemomAb, Curzion Pharmaceuticals, Ergonex, Galapagos NV, GSK, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Inventiva, Italfarmaco, iQvia, medac, Medscape, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, MSD, Roche, Sanofi, UCB, Amgen, Lilly, Target BioScience, Pfizer, project scoring fees from Abbvie, interview fees from Catenion, travel support from Pfizer, research grants from Actelion, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Competitive Drug Development International Ltd, Mitsubishi Tanabe, patent issued mir-29 for the treatment of systemic sclerosis (US8247389, EP2331143).

• Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

• Patient consent for publication Obtained.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.