The Clinical Innovation Network: a policy for promoting development of drugs and medical devices in Japan

The continuous increase in the costs of developing new drugs and medical devices drives increases in medical expenses. Seventy to ninety percent of these costs are associated with clinical trials. Therefore, the development of cost-effective methods to perform clinical trials remains a challenge. One approach is to use patient registries, collections of data related to patients with a specific diagnosis, condition, or procedure. Patient registries are used in Denmark, Sweden, and the USA for the enrollment of patients into clinical trials, and to evaluate endpoints. In Japan, a national project for registry-oriented clinical research, termed the 'Clinical Innovation Network' (CIN), was initiated in 2016. Here, we provide an overview of the CIN and discuss its impact on drug and device development in Japan.