[Corgano]

According to the description of Neo-EPO this treatment allows the body to produce a hormone, which enhances athletic skills, and it also states that this hormone has been used by athletes for over a century to enhance performance.
My question is: Why would anyone take the Neo-EPO transgenic treatment which costs 0.2 essence and 25'000 Nuyen, if it is possible to simply implant a auto-injection system which releases the hormone and which costs only 500 Nuyen and 0.1 essence?

[Ympulse]

No refills, no possibility for the auto-injector to dump the hormone and OD you, it won't show up on cyber scanners, etc etc.

[Thrass]

1. no action required it's always on
2. it is not a thing anymore but a part of you... they can't take it away if you go to prison or anywhere...

[Corgano]

Ok, you've got a point with "no refills". And yeah, it would show up on a cyber scanners (although that's hardly a problem, since both the injector and the hormone are legal and not restricted )

But OD ... I mean it's theoretically possible IF the game master decides that something triggers it, or if some Hacker hacks your PAN and sets the auto-injector on overdrive. 
Although that's not really a problem. Just don't keep more than one dose inside the injector. Problem solved. 

The other points (no actions required, can't be taken away) aren't really valid (imho), because one refill per day is hardly a problem (if the auto-injector holds more than one dose it's even less of an issue) and an implanted auto-injector can't be simply taken away. And if you're in a situation where the bad guys are able to operate on you and remove the auto-injector, then they would certainly be in a position to give you some drug that counteracts the hormone production in your body.

... I've just realized that you could get the Neo-EPO bonus even cheaper: Just buy a syringe (or the futuristic SR equivalent) and inject the dose of hormone yourself once a day.
No risk of malfunctioning cyberware (OD) and the essence cost would be zero.   

[Thrass]

an auto injector is the equivalent of a syringe... it's an auto syringe
a disposable auto injector has 0 essence cost for a reason...
it's just a syringe shoved under the skin

[Mithlas]

Away from books at the moment so I can't point out a specific page number, but in Augment there's a bioware Gland you can buy and implant in yourself, it adds 100*cost of the drug, but it continuously re-creates this drug and keeps it in your system. Still costs essence, but it would be more available than Geneware (I always thought the essence cost was a little high in that, but I also prefer a more GATTACA take where geneware has to be 'implanted' before birth or it'll never take hold). 2070 is more advanced, but I don't think we'll be able to affect true gene therapy (except maybe cellular repair) until something more like 2770. Still, it's there in the books for those tables who like it.

[The_Gun_Nut]

True gene therapy is looking more and more like 2070 in the real world.  As is memory and personality copy/pasting onto a freshly bio-printed body.  There's also asteroid mining, custom targeted virus assasination, and a number of other wondrous/really-freaking-scary things popping up in the near future.

Stay tuned for further developments.