Watz, Henrik
Hohlfeld, Jens M.
Singh, Dave
Beier, Jutta
Diamant, Zuzana
Liu, Jinming
Hua, Shucheng
Abd-Elaziz, Khalid
Pinot, Pascale
Jones, Ieuan
Tillmann, Hanns-Christian
Funding for this research was provided by:
Novartis Pharma AG
Article History
Received: 23 December 2019
Accepted: 1 April 2020
First Online: 15 April 2020
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Independent Ethics Committees of participating sites in Europe and China. Written informed consent was obtained from each patient before conducting any study specific procedures.
: Not applicable.
: HW reports grants from Novartis during the conduct of the study; and personal fees from AZ, BerlinChemie, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Novartis, Takeda, and Chiesi outside the submitted work. JMH reports grants from Novartis during the conduct of the study. JMH also reports personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck & Co, Inc., Novartis, and HAL; and grants from AstraZeneca AB, Novartis, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, ALK, Boehringer Ingelheim, LETI, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi-Aventis, Astellas Pharma, and Allergopharma, outside the submitted work. DS reports personal fees from Novartis during the conduct of the study; and personal fees from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Cipla, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Glenmark, Menarini, Mundipharma, Novartis, Peptinnovate, Pfizer, Pulmatrix, Theravance, and Verona outside the submitted work. JB reports other from Novartis during the conduct of the study; other from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Boehringer, Chiesi, and Pearl Therapeutics outside the submitted work; and is a 50% share-holder and managing director full-time of Insaf Respiratory Research Institute, which received the compensations listed above. Apart from academic affiliations, ZD acts as Executive and Scientific Medical Director at a phase I/II pharmacological unit (QPS-NL), which performs clinical studies for pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis. In the past 3 years, ZD received honoraria, consultancy or speaker fees, personal fees and other from Astrazeneca, ALK, Aquilon, Boehringer Ingelheim, CSL, HAL Allergy, MSD, Sanofi-Genzyme. JL has nothing to disclose. SH is a Principal Investigator at Jilin University First Hospital, which received funding from Novartis Pharma AG for the conduct of this study; Jilin University First Hospital, has received funding from other pharmaceutical companies for conduct of clinical trials outside the submitted work. KAE is an Investigator at QPS, a CRO that received funding from Novartis Pharma AG for the conduct of the study; QPS has received funding from various pharmaceutical companies for the conduct of clinical studies outside the submitted work. IJ and PP are employees of Novartis. HCT is an employee of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and owns Novartis shares.