Markets

Based upon the number of Americans affected by habitual snoring, it would appear that a huge potential market exists for a low-cost alternative to LAUP.

Practitioners

More specifically, the market in the United States for the suite of devices are ear, nose and throat physicians (otolaryngologists) and oral and maxillofacial surgeons. There are approximately 7,500 ear, nose and throat physicians, 5,542 oral and maxillofacial surgeons. See Statistics for details.

The primary customers in the United States would be the 7,500 otolaryongologists and the 5,542 oral and maxillofacial surgeons. The market could also be expanded by educating the pulmonologists and sleep medicine specialists about the advantages of the devices.

One target for introducing information about the devices would be the 1,500 sleep disorder centers in the United States. These centers are multi-specialty practices dedicated to sleep disorders, including specialists such as ear, nose and throat and oral and maxillofacial surgeons, pulnomoligists and psychiatrists and are typically chaired by physicians who are board certified in sleep medicine. These centers include facilities for overnight monitoring and have access to sophisticated diagnostic equipment to determine the type and characteristics of sleep disorders, from habitual snoring to sleep apnea. About 350 of these centers have been certified by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Reaching those potential patients involves making the low-cost instruments available to all the above practitioners, who own or have access to electrosurgical units and have the skills to perform UPP. Changes in the health care industry are founded upon cost containment. Thus, patients must often bear the financial burden for elective procedures such as UPP. This low cost device will allow practitioners to expand their practice by performing beneficial treatment to new patients at a moderate cost to those patients.

Number of UPPs Performed

Good Question! The American Academy of Otolaryngology was unable to provide an estimate to us of the number of UPP procedures performed per year. A few years ago, its spokesperson stated that it was changing the manner in which its members reported to enable it to report such figures. Recent conversations indicated that such project was not undertaken due to funding cuts. Research the inventor had performed by NERAC concluded that the number was difficult to determine due to the fact that the UPP procedure may be difficult to code under the CPT codes or ICD codes due to the lack of an appropriately specific code. Conversations with the National Center for Health Statistics seemed to confirm such conclusion. However, other sources have estimated that between 45,000 and 50,000 LAUP procedures were performed in 1996 in the United States. (Somnus, Prospectus, pg.4)

An alternative approach is to shown in the Statistics. A conservative estimate of the fifty percent of otolaryngologists, and oral maxiillofacial surgeons performing from between 1 UPP per month to 1 UPP per week would be between 78,000 to 339,000 UPPs per year. These cautious estimates would entail reaching only from between 0.19% to 0.85% of the potential market of 40 million snorers in the US per year.