you know how governments (empowered by the needs of “the people”) can seize land when there is a overpowering public need?
well the government needs to seize and invalidate patents when they are holding back a public medical need
epipen is just a delivery system for a tiny amount epinephrine
seize the patent, invalidate it, let any other manufacturer use it
if there was an epidemic and there was a single source of drug to cure it, and the manufacturer purposely raised the price and limited availability to increase profit, we wouldn’t stand for it
yeah it’s socialism, that’s right, we need a dose of that to counter when capitalism becomes too destructive to society
Adrenaline/epinephrine autoinjectors are way out of patent at this point, because they were originally developed in the 70’s for the US military to deliver drugs to a soldier in a nerve gas attack. Epipen has some features that are patented as far as I know, but other maker’s products work essentially the same.
As you said, Epipen is essentially just a delivery system. Even thought the technology is known at this point, I don’t doubt it is very hard to develop an injector that works every time. I mean you can make an Epipencil and it probably works 99% of the time, but when you start demanding an even more reliable product (to 99.999%?), it becomes much harder.
I’m not saying that the Epipen is a peerless product that should cost $600, I’m saying that producing a very reliable product for decades is not trivial. I imagine the FDA demands quite a bit of a new product and this probably why no other manufacturers are currently on the US market. The cost to enter the market is probably very high.
In Europe there are others such as Jext and Anapen. Jext seems identical in function (remove cap and inject). Anapen seems to me inferior to Epipen and Jext in that it requires another step (remove the needle cover).
Edit:
That seems to be like the Anapen, an additional step needed. Might not seem like much, but when you’re gasping for breath with your vision fading…
Edit 2:
Here’s a nice comparison video:
The Auvi-Q seems to be the most advanced. In addition to the voice prompt and compact size, the injection is instantaneous compared to Epipen. There appears to be a gas cylinder in there to do that. Pretty neat.
