Competing interests
A. Bayas: personal compensation from Merck Serono, Biogen, Novartis, TEVA, Roche, Sanofi/Genzyme, Celgene/Bristol Myers Squibb, Janssen, Sandoz/HEXAL, Horizon, Alexion, Argenx; grants for congress travel and participation from Biogen, TEVA, Novartis, Sanofi/Genzyme, Merck Serono, Celgene, Janssen. None related to this report. U. Mansmann: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. B.I. Ön: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. V.S. Hoffmann: partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ((DIFUTURE), Grant Numbers 01ZZ1603[A-D] and 01ZZ1804[A-H]). A. Berthele: received consulting and/or speaker fees from Alexion, Bayer Healthcare, Biogen, Celgene, Novartis, Roche and Sandoz/Hexal, and his institution has received compensation for clinical trials from Alexion, Biogen, Merck, Novartis, Roche, and Sanofi Genzyme; all outside the submitted work. M. Mühlau: funding from German Research Foundation (PP2177, 428223038), the National Institutes of Health (1R01NS112161); Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art (Program Bavaria—Québec: F.4-V0134.K5.1/86/34); German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), DIFUTURE 01ZZ1603[A-D] and 01ZZ1804[A-I]. M.C. Kowarik: advisory boards and received speaker fees/travel grants from Merck, Sanofi-Genzyme, Novartis, Biogen, Jansen, Alexion, Celgene/Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche. He also received research grants from Merck, Sanofi-Genzyme and Celgene/Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Janssen. None related to this work. M. Krumbholz: research grants from Merck and Novartis; travel support and personal fees from BMS, Merck, Novartis and Roche; all unrelated to this manuscript. M. Senel: consulting and/or speaker honoraria from Alexion, Bayer, Biogen, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Horizon, Merck, Roche, and Sanofi Genzyme. She has received travel support from Celgene, and TEVA. She has received research funding from the Hertha-Nathorff-Program. None of this related to the current study. V. Steuerwald: partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (DIFUTURE). M. Naumann: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. J. Hartberger: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. M. Kerschensteiner: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. E. Oswald: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. C. Ruschil: supported by fortüne/PATE (no. 2536-0-0/1) from the medical faculty Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen; not related to this project. U. Ziemann: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. H. Tumani: funding for research projects, lectures, and travel from Alexion, Bayer, Biogen, Celgene/Bristol-Myers-Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Merck Serono, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi/Genzyme, Siemens and Teva, and received research support from Chemische Fabrik Karl Bucher GmbH, German Multiple Sclerosis Society (DMSG), and the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). I. Vardakas: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. F. Albashiti is partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research {(DIFUTURE), Grant Numbers 01ZZ1603[A-D] and 01ZZ1804[A-H]}. F. Kramer: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. I. Soto-Rey: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. Helmut Spengler: funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ((DIFUTURE), Grant Numbers 01ZZ1603[A-D] and 01ZZ1804[A-I]). G. Mayer: funded by the Digital Europe program of the European Commission (EDITH project no. 101083771). H.A. Kestler: partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ((DIFUTURE), Grant Numbers 01ZZ1804I). O. Kohlbacher: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. M. Hagedorn: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. M. Boeker: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. K. Kuhn: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. S. Buchka: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. F. Kohlmayer: funding for providing and maintaining of the study software, DIS from Bitcare GmbH. J. Kirschke: Co-Founder of Bonescreen GmbH. Speaker fees from Novartis. L. Behrens: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. H. Zimmermann: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. B. Bender: Co-Founder and CTO of AIRAmed GmbH, Tübingen. N. Sollmann: no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. J. Havla: reports grants from the Friedrich-Baur-Stiftung, Merck and Horizon, personal fees and non-financial support from Alexion, Horizon, Roche, Merck, Novartis, Biogen, BMS and Janssen, and non-financial support from the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation and The Sumaira Foundation. JH was partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ((DIFUTURE), Grant Numbers 01ZZ1603[A-D] and 01ZZ1804[A-H]). B. Hemmer: funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology [EXC 2145 SyNergy – ID 390857198] and the European commission (MultipleMS). He has served on scientific advisory boards for Novartis and Sandoz; he has served as DMSC member for AllergyCare, Sandoz, Polpharma, Biocon and TG therapeutics; his institution received research grants from Roche for multiple sclerosis research. He has received honoraria for counseling (Gerson Lehrmann Group). He holds part of two patents; one for the detection of antibodies against KIR4.1 in a subpopulation of patients with multiple sclerosis and one for genetic determinants of neutralizing antibodies to interferon. All conflicts are not relevant to the topic of the study.