ASCR declares no directly competing interest. Grants and studentships to his institution are declared from UK Research and Innovation (Medical Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council), Versus Arthritis, Alan and Sheila Diamond Trust, Royal British Legion, European Commission, Dr Jennie Gwynn Bequest, The British Pain Society, and the Royal Society of Medicine; consulting fees from Imperial Consultants to his person and to the institution for work for Confo, Vertex, Pharmanovo, Lateral, Novartis, Mundipharma, Orion, Shanghai SIMR Biotech, and Asahi Kasei and Toray; and payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations, speakers bureaus, manuscript writing or educational events from MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA. He has two patents with Imperial College London (WO2005/079771 and EP13702262.0/WO2013 110945; neither being pursued). He is an advisor to the British National Formulary and the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Chair of the Trial Steering Committee for the OPTION-DM trial at the National Institute for Health Research; councillor at the International Association Study of Pain; a varicella sub-committee member at the Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation; and a member of the Non Freezing Cold Injury Independent Senior Advisory Committee. All other authors declare no competing interests.