I recall being a student in the biomedical electronics/biomedical devices lab and was curious about one piece of equipment that cost about ~10k EUR. The device

I recall being a student in the biomedical electronics/biomedical devices lab and was curious about one piece of equipment that cost about ~10k EUR. The device is relatively simple to make so I asked my teacher why were they so expensive. He said that yeah, the engineering/manufacturing side of it is about 200 EUR, the remaining 9.8k EUR is spent on certifications/paperwork. Obviously, wages factor into this but over time I've come to see how paperwork and paying lawyers do in fact account for the majority of the cost.