Mega Gift Strengthens UPenn Med School

They are particularly involved in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and their names adorn one of its buildings. A profile published 3 years ago in the Philadelphia Inquirer described Raymond Perelman this way: “Though Perelman rarely grants interviews, he's hardly shy. He's a straight-talking, no-nonsense workaholic, a pistol who, by his estimation, has 'bought and sold between 30 or 50 companies' in his lifetime, mostly old-fashioned manufacturing concerns. It's easy to sense that he's a bull when it comes to business.”

This isn’t the Perelmans’ first major gift to Penn’s medical school. Six years ago, they donated $25 million to help create the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which houses Penn’s cancer and cardiovascular medicine centers and includes cutting-edge technologies to treat both groups of diseases. Perelman graduated from the Wharton School of Business at Penn in 1940, and Penn gives more biographical detail about the couple here.