Multi-centre modified Delphi exercise to identify candidate items for classifying early-stage symptomatic knee osteoarthritis

We would like to acknowledge the funding support for this initiative by Gruenenthal and Viatris Inc., and the fundraising efforts by Stefan Lohmander, Ali Mobasheri, and Francis Berenbaum, on behalf of OARSI. The sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.r JWL reports a Pfizer research grant completed in 2021, unrelated to this work; FB reports consulting fees from Grunenthal, GSK, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, and Servier, honoraria from Viatris, Pfizer, and Zoetis, meeting/travel support from Nordic Pharma, participation on a DSMB or Advisory Board for AstraZeneca, Sun Pharma, and Nordic Bioscience, and stock with 4P Pharma and 4Moving Biotech; SD re-ports support from Society for Osteoarthritis Research for attending annual conference, and role as a patron for the Society for Osteoarthritis Research India; CAE reports grants/contracts from NFL Play Smart Play Safe, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and World Rugby; MI reports grants/contracts from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) , Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) , and Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) , honoraria from GSK, meeting/travel support from Zimmer-Biomet, and participation on a DSMB or Advisory Board for Grunenthal and Shionogi; MK reports consulting fees from Novartis, GSK, Pfizer, UCB, and CHDR, lecture fee from Novartis, royalties from Wolters Kluwer and Springer Verlag, and research grants from Dutch Arthritis Society and IMI-APPROACH, all paid to institution; AM re-ports fundraising support for this initiative by Grunenthal and Viatris Inc., European Commission funding over the past 36 months from: Horizon Europe, COST Association, Euronanomed-3, Academy of Finland (Research Council of Finland) , Finnish Research Impact Foundation, Pfizer Inc., and Research Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos Mokslo Taryba) (all paid to institution) , consulting fees from Nestle WOBENZYM, Rottapharm Biotechnology, HALEON, Grunenthal, Orion Corporation, Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Pacira Biosciences, Kolon TissueGene, Pfizer Inc. , and Viatris, honoraria from Janssen, Viatris, and Consumer Healthcare at Sanofi (France) , meeting/travel support from Viatris, Consumer Healthcare at Sanofi (France) , and HALEON, and travel reimbursement as the Immediate Past President of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International; AT reports support from Osteoarthritis and Cartilage as an Associate Editor for statistics; JR reports a leadership role on the OARSI Ethics & Governance Committee, Nominating Committee, and funding by the Dutch Arthritis Society; IKH reports consulting fees from Abbvie, GSK and Grunenthal, and speaker honorarium from Abbvie; CTA reports grant funding and consulting/honoraria from Abbvie, Novartis, Pfizer, and Servier; LSL reports consulting/honoraria from Arthro Therapeutics AB, Sweden, and participation on DSMB boardsr for Rho and Arthrex; ME reports grant funding from Swedish Research Council, Governmental Funding of Clinical Research within National Health Service (ALF) , Kock Foundations, Gustav V 80 Year B-day foundation, Foundation for support to people with movement disability in Skane, Osterlund Foundation, consulting from Cellcolabs AB, Grunenthal Sweden AB, and Key2Compliance AB, and leadership role as the OARSI President; TN reports grant funding from NIH, and grant funding and consulting/honoraria from Pfizer/Lilly, Regeneron and Novartis, and support from Osteoarthritis and Cartilage as a Deputy Editor. All other authors report no competing interests.