Competing interests: All authors have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: MH has received personal fees from Abbvie,Norgine, Janssen, Astellas and Novartis outside the submitted work. NS has received research grants from NIHR, MRC, Wellcome Trust, British Liver Trust, Alcohol Education Research Council, and various other funding bodies. NNS has done paid consultancy work and received travelling expenses from pharmaceutical companies Norgine (2014) and Kyowa Kirin (2014) and done medicolegal work in hepatitis C and alcohol related liver disease. NS is a member of, or has done advisory work for, EU Alcohol Forum, Royal College of Physicians Alcohol Committee, Alcohol Health Alliance UK, UK Department of Health, Home Office, Department of Transport, Southampton City Council, British Liver Trust, clinical/scientific adviser to Public Health England (paid), EASL, BASL and BSG. IAR declares personal fees from Abbvie, from Bayer, and from Norgine outside the submitted work; GMH declares personal fees from Falk Pharma, and from Intercept outside the submitted work. GMH is also an investigator for many agents for immune mediated liver disease from Falk Pharma, Intercept, Gilead, GSK, FF Pharma, Novartis, Cymabay, NGM Bio, and BioTie.