Why so expensive? The 'law' of supply and demand. If nobody else makes such a lens (there's none that I am aware of), then they can charge whatever the market will bear. If there isn't enough sales at their price, they'll lower the price until they get enough sales...hopefully enough to justify their research and development costs and still make a profit.
Of note is the fact that you'll need specific-to-that-lens software to "uncompress" (eg, view) the image on your computer. It may be limited to single computer use as well. Simply emailing the image or attempting to print the image will not give the desired results...unless the company provides freely-distributable software to view and/or print the images like Adobe does for PDFs.
Back in the '50s, '60s and '70s, competing companies that produced Cinemascope (tm) and Panavision (tm) and Vistavision (tm) movies required the projectors used to show those movies be equipped with lenses that will 'uncompress' the images. I'm guessing the special-use lenses for those projectors didn't come cheap, either. When shown on TV, those movies are usually shown in 'letterbox' format so the entire width of the movie frame is displayed. Sometimes, the local TV stations will show the credits for a Cinemascope/Panavision/Vistavision movies with the 'normal' lens so they 'fit' the TV screen. People look more like beanpoles and buildings all look like skyscrapers until they switch over to the special lens for the rest of the movie, and then crop off each side of the frame so the entire TV picture is filled. But with todays' digital TVs, that methodology seems to have become unnecessary.
So, before you take the plunge on an unusual, unique lens, double check everything you may be getting yourself into.
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