Randomisation and masking
DISEASE
Eligible patients were randomly allocated to baricitinib or matching placebo in an equal ratio, stratified by study centre and disease severity at baseline. An independent unblinded statistician used a computer-generated randomisation list with a permuted block size of 6 to assign participants to treatment groups and was the only person who knew the block size. All treatment assignments were securely stored on a server with restricted access. Participants, care providers and study personnel were masked to treatment assignment. Baricitinib and matching placebo were provided by Eli Lilly and Company, and drugs were stored, labelled, and shipped to the sites by a pharmaceutical logistics company.