Penn gets a record gift for its medical school from the Perelmans

The University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday received a record gift of $225 million for its School of Medicine from Philadelphia philanthropist Raymond G. Perelman and his wife Ruth.

Perelman signed the papers finalizing the gift on Tuesday at the home of University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann, he said later Tuesday.

The gift benefiting the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as it will now be known, had been in the works for about a year, Perelman said.

The amount of the gift from Perelman and his wife "became apparent in the negotiations," said Perelman, 93, a philanthropist who made his fortune in a variety of businesses, buying, operating, restructuring and, at times, liquidating.

An e-mail to Penn alumni and students from Gutmann and David L. Cohen, chairman of the board of trustees, called the donation "the largest single gift ever given to the University and the largest single gift to name a medical school in United States history."

Gutmann and Cohen said the gift "will establish a permanent endowment, which will enable Penn to provide significantly more financial aid to medical school students, to recruit more of the world's most talented physicians and scientists, and to support path-breaking research."

Reached by telephone at his Rittenhouse Square home last night, Perelman said the endowment would help "brilliant" students who "would be great doctors" but previously have avoided medical school because of the heavy burdens of borrowing money to pay for a medical education.

He also said the nation would need more doctors as a result of significant changes to the health-care system under the Obama administration.

"It became apparent to me that the health care system was going to start changing drastically in the United States," Perelman said.

In a separate interview Tuesday, Gutmann said that after the papers were signed, champagne was uncorked, and participants made "a toast to Raymond and Ruth, and to a historic day for Penn and Philadelphia and the School of Medicine."

Along with boosting recruitment and research, Gutmann said, the money will help students directly. Financial aid for medical students will increase 20 percent beginning in the next academic year as a result of the gift, Gutmann said.

Gutmann said that after the Perelmans made a $25 million donation in 2005 for an advanced medicine center at Penn, they and Penn officials began discussing what the Perelmans might do next.

"I bounced possibilities off of him, and he suggested naming the school of medicine," she said.Perelman, who grew up in Olney and graduated from Penn's Wharton School in 1940, is a trustee of Penn Medicine, the umbrella organization for Penn's medical school and its hospital network.

In their statetment, Cohen and Gutmann said the donation would spur Penn forward.

"We will redouble our efforts to make Penn a global model of a comprehensive academic center, which integrates the most innovative research, education, and patient care for the betterment of humankind," they said.

Before the Perelman gift, the largest donation to the University of Pennsylvania was the 1993 gift of $120 million from publisher Walter Annenberg and his wife, Leonore, for the university's existing Annenberg School of Communication and for the creation of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

In 2002, Mrs. Annenberg made an additional $100 million donation to the school and the center.

The Perelmans recently supported construction of the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and an endowed professorship in internal medicine.

They have supported the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, among many other beneficiaries.

Their $15 million gift enabled the Philadelphia Museum of Art to create the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, an addition that opened in 2007. Raymond Perelman is on the board of the museum.