Footnotes

• Handling editor Josef S Smolen

• Contributors VM and JA contributed to the drafting of the response.

• 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 Karolinska Institutet, with JA as principal investigator, has or has had research agreements with Abbvie, Astra-Zeneca, BMS, Eli Lilly, MSD, Pfizer, Roche, Samsung Bioepis, Sanofi, and UCB, mainly in the context of safety monitoring of biologics via ARTIS/Swedish Biologics Register.

• 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.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.