NEW YORK — Stocks closed lower on Wednesday, led by sharp declines in health-care companies as outrage over the steep price hikes for EpiPens escalates.
Trading remains quiet overall with many investors still on vacation. It was another below-average day of trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 65.82 points, or 0.4 percent, to 18,481.48. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 11.46 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,175.44 and the Nasdaq composite lost 42.38 points, or 0.8 percent, to 5,217.69.
Major indexes were down slightly for most of the day, and the losses deepened as a late-day sell-off in drugmakers dragged the market lower. Mylan dropped $2.47, or 5.5 percent, to $43.15 after falling nearly 5 percent the day before.
Outrage over Mylan’s price increases for its EpiPen product continues to grow. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton issued a statement Wednesday calling Mylan’s price increases “outrageous” and called for the company to reduce its prices immediately. She is the latest in a bipartisan group of politicians who have raised concerns about Mylan.
EpiPens are medical devices designed to deliver adrenaline to a patient suffering from a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Allergy sufferers often have to carry more than one because they always need to be close by in case of an emergency. Mylan, which bought the rights to the product in 2007, has raised the price from roughly $100 for two pens to roughly $600.
Other biotechnology and drugmaker stocks also fell as investors anticipated that pressure over drug pricing practices could spread to other drugmakers. Vertex Pharmaceuticals fell $4.28, or 4.2 percent, to $96.71 and Allergan fell $9.94, or 3.9 percent, to $243.77.
Stocks remain stuck in a narrow range, as they have over the last two weeks. Many traders are on vacation and with no economic data and very few company earnings being released, investors are hesitant to make big moves.
“Barring some unforeseen event, this will continue to be the pattern until after Labor Day,” said J.J. Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade.
