For our project on autism services, we calculated the market size as TAM: $27.3 billion, SAM: $2 billion, and SOM: $200 million. According to the Allied Market Research Reports, the global autism spectrum disorders market was valued at $27.3 billion (2021). With the addressable market growing with a compound annual rate of 4.6%, the market is predicted to be valued at $43.2 billion. Since healthcare is one of the most regulated sectors, we have to be strategic about our SAM. After much deliberation, our group chose the US as our SAM for two major reasons. First, the USA’s per capita healthcare spending is the highest among the OECD nations. The US autism services market is valued at $2 billion. Secondly, although the US healthcare sector is highly regulated by governmental bodies such as the FDA, the process for approval of new clinical services in the US is much more systematic compared to the rest of the world. We then arrived at a reasonable estimate that our product would be able to capture around one-tenth of the SAM, making our SOM to be approximately $1.7 billion for the first phase of our offering, i.e. limited to the US due to regulatory reasons such as government approvals and insurance reimbursements.
After discussions with an autistic individual and a parent of an autistic child, the following quotes stood out to me:
“Our child takes time to get used to an RBT. And when he starts being comfortable, there is often an RBT change. And it feels like we just have to reset the process.” – parent of autistic child in Arizona
“I wish my parents received some kind of training to navigate my autism. They were nice people who tried their best. But I wish they knew more about how to do it better.” – autistic adult in Texas
