Footnotes

• ▸ This article is an abridged version of a paper that was published on bmj.com. Cite this article as: BMJ 2013;346:f3195

• This is one of a series of occasional articles on therapeutics for common or serious conditions, covering new drugs and old drugs with important new indications or concerns. The series advisers are Robin Ferner, honorary professor of clinical pharmacology, University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Hospital, and Albert Ferro, professor of cardiovascular clinical pharmacology, King's College London. To suggest a topic for this series, please email us at practice{at}bmj.com.

• Contributors: Both authors contributed equally to the conceptualisation and writing ofthis article. ROD has expertise in medicine, clinical pharmacology, and toxicology. GGG has expertise in basic and clinical pharmacology. ROD is guarantor.

• Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: ROD has been involved with consultancies with several drug companies on patents and advice on paracetamol, ibuprofen, selective COX-2 inhibitors, and other drugs used for osteoarthritis; all payments for consultancies were made to a trust fund at St Vincent's Hospital. Payment to ROD was made for expert testimony regarding a veterinary anti-arthritic product unrelated to NSAIDs. We acknowledge the assistance ofthe National Health and Medical Research Council programme grant (568612) for general research relating to patient safety.

• Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

• Patient consent: Not required (patient anonymised, dead, or hypothetical).