Lead Sponsor

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Age

18 - 80 years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

•Patients who completed the core study CACZ885H2251. A patient is defined as completing the core study if he/she completed the study up to and including the last visit (Visit 9).
•Patients who have signed a written informed consent before any trial procedure is performed.

•Patients for whom continuation in the extension 1 is not considered appropriate by the treating physician.
•Pregnant or nursing (lactating) women, where pregnancy is defined as the state of a female after conception and until the termination of gestation, confirmed by a positive pregnancy test (serum or urine).
•Female patients who were physiologically capable of becoming pregnant, unless they were:
•* Female patients whose career, lifestyle, or sexual orientation precluded intercourse with a male partner.
•* Female patients whose partners had been sterilized by vasectomy or other means.
•* Using an acceptable method of contraception with a failure rate (Pearl Index (PI)) \< 1.
•* Reliable contraception had to be maintained throughout the study and for 2 months after study drug discontinuation.