The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has a new name. Thanks to a whopping $225 million dollar grant, Raymond and Ruth Perelman now have a medical school named after them. In the latest of several contribution made by the aging couple to the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania community, this sum will help transform the campus and continue its leadership in the field of research, practice and development. Welcome to The Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Raymond G. Perelman, 93 years old, took the donation and renaming in stride:

“I look at it as Penn Medicine gave me a gift. They offered me an opportunity to have my name on one of the best medical schools in the country.”

Mr. Perelman, already a trustee of the school, is president and chairman of the board of RGP Holdings Inc., a privately held company with manufacturing, mining and financial interests. The current website as of Wednesday is curious. It is only three pages and has the very simple statement taking up the entire welcome page:

“Thank you for visiting our website. RGB Holdings is a diversified holding company with interests in many industries including insurance, real estate and technology.”

There is no contact information or anything further.

Amy Gutmann, the president of the university adds:

“It’s the triple crown for our school of medicine. It’s going to enable us to have the best students, with enormously increased financial aid, and to recruit the most eminent faculty and provide extraordinary research. We lose some students because they feel that they can’t take the large loan burden, or we get them, but they feel pressured to go into the highest paying fields of medicine, rather than follow their passions. With this kind of resources, in perpetuity, we can sit down and contemplate admitting more students. It’s going to allow us to fulfill some of our wildest dreams, and high on our list of dreams is being able to train more doctors.”

The Perelmans’ donation will establish a permanent endowment that will be used, in part, to enable the medical school to increase its financial aid budget by at least 20% for the class entering in 2012.

The University of Pennsylvania is the oldest and one of the finest medical schools in the United States. Penn is rich in tradition and heritage and at the same time consistently at the forefront of new developments and innovations in medical education and research. Since its founding in 1765 the School has been a strong presence in the community and prides itself on educating the leaders of tomorrow in patient care, biomedical research, and medical education.

The Perelmans have strong ties to the university. Raymond is a 1940 graduation of Penn’s Wharton School of Business. He is also a U of Penn Medicine Trustee. His much higher profile son, Ronald Perelman, who is worth $12 billion and ranked 24th among the 400 Richest Americans, is an alum of both the undergraduate university and MBA program and is a trustee of the school and a member of the Wharton Board of Overseers.

The Perelmans are two of Philadelphia’s most prominent philanthropists. They have supported other projects at the medical school, including a professorship in internal medicine and a $25 million 2005 gift to create the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. They have also made large gifts to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and many Jewish cultural and welfare organizations.

Source: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Written by Sy Kraft