> You can view the high price as the free-market finding the intersection of supply and demand given the regulatory and legal constraints but that seems like a less than useful way of understanding 'free-market'.
Stop using regulation as a stalking horse for your argument. Everything you need to know about the price of epi pens you can derive from inelastic demand (people don't want to die), and barriers to entry (copyrighted brand, network of doctors writing prescriptions, and yes, FDA approval so these things don't kill people).
The price is high because people will pay almost anything to not die. This drives the price point up to capture consumer surplus. It's easy to understand.
The Free Market isn't a magic bullet that will drive down these prices. For one simple reason. Rational actors don't compete on price. I'm going to repeat this, because so many people don't get it.
Rational actors don't compete on price. Rational actors will spend up to their expected monopoly profits to create a Nash Equilibrium where new entrants into a market will be unprofitable. The simplest way to do this is through dumping. (see "competition" in the generic drug market for example) Why doesn't this happen in every market? Regulation.
Maybe you don't like that in unregulated markets, people starve, are poisoned, are denied treatment, and worked like slaves. Because that's how you maximize profit, by minimizing your own costs by maximizing externalized costs. So you'll think anything to avoid that realization. Like blame 'regulation' for what's obviously rationally maximizing profits.
And if you want to know how exactly the 'free-market' for medical supplies would work without regulation, just look at the 1800s. Demand was still inelastic, so prices were high, quality was low (for obvious reasons), and competition was still stupid, because price fixing and dumping were still more profitable than competing on price.