How to verify a Japanese clinic before you pay

Step one: find the clinic in the register

Under the Act on the Safety of Regenerative Medicine, a clinic providing stem cell treatment must file a Regenerative Medicine Provision Plan with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The filings are public. We mirror that register and let you search it by clinic name, prefecture, or the name of the physician in charge.

If the clinic is not in the register, that is not automatically proof of wrongdoing — it may be filed under a corporate name that differs from its trading name. But it is a question you should get answered in writing before any money changes hands.

Step two: understand the three classes

Filings are classified by risk. Class I covers the highest-risk procedures, Class II the middle tier, and Class III the lowest. Most private stem cell clinics operate under Class II or III. The class tells you how much scrutiny the plan received — it is not a quality rating, and Class I is not an endorsement.

Step three: know what is not in the register at all

Treatments using stem cell culture supernatant or exosomes fall outside this law, because no cells are administered. There is no filing and no committee review for them. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has stated that no such product holds pharmaceutical approval in Japan.

This matters because these are among the most heavily marketed treatments to overseas visitors. If a clinic offers them, there is simply no filing number for you to check — so ask instead who manufactures the product and what sterility and virus testing was performed.

What the register still will not tell you

It will not tell you whether the treatment works, how skilled the physician is, or what your outcome will be. Japan does not certify any of that. The register tells you that a plan exists, was reviewed by a certified committee, and is on the public record. That is a floor, not a recommendation.

Common questions

What if the clinic name in the register looks different?

Clinics often file under the name of the operating medical corporation rather than the name on the door. Search by prefecture and by the physician’s name as well. If you still cannot match them, ask the clinic for its filing number directly.

Is the register updated?

We publish the date we retrieved the official data on our data page, and we re-check clinic websites periodically. Always treat the Ministry’s own page as the authoritative source for the most recent filings.