California voters this November will be asked to weigh in on a multibillion-dollar bond measure for immunology research, but a closer look at the fine print suggests the money may be destined for a single institution — one closely tied to the initiative’s own financial backers.
Proposition 38 would authorize $8.4 billion in state bonds to fund research into immunotherapies aimed at combating cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other conditions. More than half of that total — over $4 billion — is earmarked for a single research institute that goes unnamed anywhere in the ballot language. Instead, the measure lays out a dense list of qualifications so specific that, according to a CalMatters review, only one organization in California appears able to meet them: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a nonprofit affiliated with UCLA.
That detail matters because one of the institute’s co-founders, billionaire Gary K. Michelson, is also among the leading financial backers of the Yes on Proposition 38 campaign.
Political scientists who study California’s initiative process say the measure’s language raises red flags. Sarah Hill, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, said the criteria written into Prop. 38 are so narrowly tailored that they read like a blueprint pointing to one specific recipient, even though that recipient is never named.
“It is very clearly designed to support a specific nonprofit,” Hill said, adding that the bond’s oddly precise numerical thresholds should catch the attention of anyone reading closely. She questioned why half of the bond’s funding would flow to a single institute rather than being distributed more broadly among the state’s research community.
Hill also noted that splitting the bond into two pots — one for the unnamed institute and another for competitive grants open to other universities and nonprofits — may be a strategic move designed to make the overall measure look more inclusive than it actually is. “They’re trying to get people to focus there, but would half of the money still be designated for one nonprofit? Essentially, yes,” she said.
She suspects the campaign is banking on voters not digging deep enough to notice, instead responding favorably to the measure’s feel-good promise of curing serious diseases. Similar dynamics played out in 2024, when voters narrowly approved Proposition 34, a measure that appeared tailored to target a single organization, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, without naming it outright.
Financial ties run deep between the ballot measure and the research institute expected to benefit most. Michelson, a spinal surgeon turned inventor who made his fortune through medical patents, co-founded the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, which became a nonprofit in 2022. He chairs its board and has personally donated more than $120 million to the organization. The institute operates out of research space owned by UCLA.
Michelson and a policy nonprofit he founded, the Michelson Center for Public Policy, have contributed at least $8.2 million to the Yes on 38 campaign. Meyer Luskin, another co-founder of the immunology institute, has kicked in at least $5 million of his own.
The bond measure’s eligibility requirements for the $4.2 billion award are notably precise. The recipient must be a nonprofit founded before 2025, focused specifically on immunology and immunotherapy rather than research in general, and affiliated with a UC campus whose medical center serves a substantial patient population — at minimum, 3.5 million outpatient visits and 35,000 inpatient admissions annually. According to the university system’s most recent financial audit, only UCLA’s medical network clears that bar, with 4.1 million outpatient visits in 2025. UC San Francisco was next closest, with 3.4 million.
Additional requirements call for a research facility of at least 200,000 square feet devoted primarily to immunology and immunotherapy work, and evidence that the organization has already raised at least $250 million in private philanthropic support. The California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy has reportedly secured exactly that amount, and press materials indicate its planned UCLA facility will span between 360,000 and 500,000 square feet.
The bond text goes further, requiring that top UCLA administrators sit on the winning institute’s governing board — a requirement already satisfied by the immunology institute, whose board includes UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk and Vice Chancellor for Research Roger Wakimoto, among other senior campus officials.
Perhaps most telling, the measure specifies that the qualifying institute must have received two donations of at least $50 million each — one supporting rapid vaccine development, the other supporting microbiome research. Those descriptions closely mirror language used in a 2024 announcement detailing Michelson’s $120 million gift to the institute, which funded programs matching both descriptions almost word for word.
A UCLA spokesperson, Phil Hampton, confirmed to CalMatters that among nonprofits affiliated with the university, only the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy meets the bond’s criteria.
Not everyone in the scientific community is on board. Robert Kaplan, a former associate director at the National Institutes of Health and now a senior scholar at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, said funneling such a large sum to one institution shortchanges the broader research landscape. “There is a lot of talent in immunology, immunotherapy research in California,” he said. “All the institutions are scrambling, and so tracking a huge portion of it to one institution, I think, is a bad idea.” Kaplan also questioned whether the bond’s narrow focus on immunotherapy comes at the expense of other valuable biomedical research.
The remaining roughly $4 billion in bond funding would be distributed through a competitive grant process overseen by a council made up of representatives from seven of the University of California’s 10 campuses — excluding UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz — along with officials from other universities and nonprofit research organizations. Winning projects must focus on immunology and immunotherapy and can only come from institutions represented on that council. Notably, grant recipients would be required to maintain close ties with the very institute receiving the larger $4.2 billion share, which would have a hand in helping select which outside projects get funded and would be entitled to participate in resulting clinical trials.
Campaign spokesperson Claudia Briggs defended the measure’s structure when presented with CalMatters’ findings, saying the criteria were not written with any single organization in mind. “We wrote the measure to ensure a highly qualified nonprofit could receive funding,” she said, adding that the campaign could not speak to which specific institutions across the state might or might not qualify. She said the requirements were designed to ensure that whichever institute is ultimately selected has adequate infrastructure, an established relationship with a UC campus, and a track record of financial stewardship needed to put the money to immediate use.
Briggs also defended UCLA’s outsized role in the bond’s framework, pointing to its position as the UC system’s largest health network and its location in the state’s most populous and diverse region.
Should voters approve Prop. 38, the bond would cost the state roughly $500 million a year for 25 years, bringing the total repayment to more than $12 billion once interest is factored in, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That cost could be offset if drug therapies developed through the funded research generate revenue that flows back to the state. The measure also requires a 20% discount on resulting drugs for California residents and directs 10% of related revenue back to the state’s general fund.
Backers argue the investment is necessary given the instability of federal research funding in recent years, including a wave of canceled grants tied to funding cuts ordered by the Trump administration, though many of those grants were later reinstated. If no institute meets the bond’s criteria, the measure allows the California Department of Public Health to revise the requirements to identify a qualifying recipient.
The Michelson Center for Public Policy, which is chaired by Gary Michelson, has also contributed between $1,000 and $9,900 to CalMatters.
Original source: CalMatters
