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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 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 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 is currently on leave from her academic appointment.