Dr. Inmaculada (Inma) Hernandez, Ph.D.

Inmaculada (Inma) Hernandez is a Professor with tenure at the University of California, San Diego. Her research program sits at the intersection of health services research, pharmaceutical policy, and pharmacoepidemiology. Hernandez has authored over 100 scientific articles (>80 as first or senior author), including first-authored papers in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine or Annals of Internal Medicine, among other leading journals. Her scientific contributions have been covered by media worldwide and have been featured by the main outlets, including New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, Forbes, or BBC.

Hernandez is a nationally recognized pharmaceutical policy scholar who has made major contributions to improving transparency in the drug pricing and reimbursement system. She was the first to quantify the contribution of innovation versus inflation in the rising trends of drug prices. In 2020, she documented in JAMA the increasingly large disconnect between the list prices of medications and manufacturers’ net revenue, which is the product of confidential rebates. In order to shed light into these opaque pricing dynamics, Hernandez developed an algorithm in collaboration with Sean Dickson that leverages multiple datasets to track cash flow across the drug supply chain. This algorithm produced the first public estimates of confidential manufacturer discounts to pharmacy benefit managers for leading drug products.

Hernandez maintains a NIH-funded research program focused on the application of advanced methods and large datasets to optimize medication use in older adults. These pharmaco-epidemiology efforts have centered on improving the use of anticoagulants to prevent strokes associated with atrial fibrillation, a common cardiac arrhythmia. Additionally, Hernandez has pioneered the execution of nationwide person-level geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to measure inequities in spatial accessibility to the health care infrastructure. This research line commenced in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic with the development of an app that informed the Pennsylvania Department of Health in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to medically underserved areas. 

Hernandez was recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2018 and in 2021 she became the first pharmacist to receive the Academy Health Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award.  She has been invited to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on pharmaceutical policy matters, and her research has been cited in high-profile policy documents, including ASPE, GAO, and MedPAC reports to Congress, CDC guidelines, FDA reports, NIH requests for information, and testimonies before both Chambers of Congress. Hernandez currently holds the National Academy of Medicine Fellowship in Pharmacy, and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.