That means the epinephrine (adrenalin) itself is essentially free. What do they charge in the US/Europe/Australia?
(Edit reply to a3n below: My point was that it's not as dangerous as you are making out, not emotional appeals and cultural norms for responsible parenting. Self-administration: good enough for 3 billion+ in China/India/other developing world locations, good enough for me. The whole idea of stabbing yourself with a fat dose of adrenaline is pretty hackish anyway and shows how undeveloped our medical knowledge still is.)
The idea behind the auto injectors is accuracy with relatively little training and skill; a parent can do it while they're watching their kid strangle. That's why you buy an auto injector instead of syringes.
Competing auto injectors have not been as accurate and simple to use, is what I've read.
I would not trust my kid's life to a hacker injector; these are medical devices that are required to go through trials. Even traditional syringes are regulated. Sure, maybe you can decide to use an unregulated injector; I wouldn't, not for my kid.
The hack is putting in your own needle + medicine.
Also legally EpiPen must be fulfilled by a brandname version instead of alternatives, and alternatives are scarce due to the difficulty of passing regulatory approval: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr...
The main problem is that, if you're carrying around EpiPens for allergic anaphylaxis, particularly for a child, dealing with syringes and bottles isn't really a practical solution for day-to-day living (and definitely not an option if you're carrying them around for yourself -- hard to carry out delicate medical procedures while being unable to breathe). There are probably a lot of people without access to autoinjectors who have had to suffer the consequences of anaphylactic shock.
That means for an average human, LD50 = ~10 x 70 = 700mg... or perhaps more for typically overweight Americans.
Conclusion: Scare factor is being used to justify the market... you have been had.
"Mylan's efforts to maintain its market dominance were aided when Sanofi's competing product was recalled in November 2015 and further when Teva's generic competitor was rejected by the FDA in March 2016.[76]"
http://www.fiercepharma.com/sales-and-marketing/fda-swats-do...
Yes, you can load a precise dose into a device, but the device has to actually work, reliably and consistently. This is apparently a hard problem, for at least two Epipen competitors. Since Epipen has no serious competitors for a device like this, they get to charge as much as they dare.
They get to charge as much as the market will bare.
The precise and reliable dosing mechanism is out of patent.