The authors thank Drs Saloua Mammou, Isabelle Griffoul, Emilie Ducourau, Virginie Martaillé and Julien Mélet for clinical assessment. We are indebted to our nurses Nelly Jaccaz-Vallée, Sergine Gosset, Fabienne Chalier, Valérie Angebeau, Laetitia Cornec, Adeline Coutellier, Corinne Depont, Vanessa Fougeray, Valérie Fuseau, Pascale Guibout, Sophie Joncheray, Céline Letot, Isabelle Romier and Elodie Vigneron for blood sampling and commitment in taking care of patients, to Claude Gautier and Elisabeth Billant for performing blood sample staining and flow cytometry analysis and to Alexandra Farrell for linguistic revision and editing. Alexandra Farrell was supported by the program (“Investissements d’avenir Grant Agreement LabEx MAbImprove: ANR-10-LABX-53”). CNRS UMR 7292 participates in the Consortium «Monitoring of monoclonal Antibodies Group in Europe» (MAGE) for inflammatory diseases. The MAGE Consortium is supported by LE STUDIUM Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies (http://www.lestudium-ias.com/fr).
Funding
This project was not supported by any specific grants from commercial companies and there were no conflicts of interest with commercial companies in either the preparation of, or support for this research.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Authors’ contributions
ML participated in the clinical assessment, data collection, statistical analysis and interpretation of results and drafted the manuscript. DM contributed substantially to the study conception and design, participated in the clinical assessment and in the analysis and interpretation of results and drafted the manuscript. PG participated in clinical assessment, analysis and interpretation of results and revised the manuscript. CB and HSC participated in the analysis of results and revised the manuscript. HW participated in the analysis and interpretation of results and revised the manuscript. GT supervised the study conception and design and the flow cytometry analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Authors’ information
Not applicable.
Competing interests
DM participated on behalf of his institution in clinical trials sponsored by Abbott, Roche, BMS, Pfizer, UCB and MSD; his hospital received a grant for research from Abbott in 2004 and from Nordic Pharma in 2012; he has acted as a consultant and given lectures on behalf of his institution for MSD, Pfizer, UCB and Novartis; he has been invited to attend international congresses by MSD, Roche, BMS, Abbott and Janssen-Cilag. PG participated on behalf of his institution in clinical trials sponsored by Abbott, Roche, BMS, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB and MSD; he has acted as a consultant and given lectures for Abbott, BMS, MSD, Pfizer, UCB; he has been invited to attend international congresses by MSD, Roche, BMS and Abbott. ML, CB, HCS, HW and GT declared no conflicts of interest.
Consent for publication
All authors have approved the final manuscript and given their consent for publication of the manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The treatment protocol, blood sampling and follow-up visits were performed as per routine procedure. Ethics approval and written consent were therefore not required for the data analyses.