Raymond Perelman gives $50M to Children's Hospital

A rendering shows the future Raymond G. Perelman Campus. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Philadelphia philanthropist Raymond G. Perelman has given $50 million to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which will name an eight-acre portion of its University City campus in his honor.

The gift, to be announced Wednesday, equals in size the biggest Children's has ever received, and brings Perelman's total announced donations in the Philadelphia region to $339 million.

Children's said it would use Perelman's $50 million to establish the Raymond G. Perelman Research Fund to support a Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, Perelman Scholars, a Fund for Research Innovation, the Perelman Endowed Chair in Pediatric Ophthalmology, and general research.

"Anyone who has spent any length of time in the city of Philadelphia, as I and my family members have, knows that CHOP is the best in the world," said Perelman, 97. "I consider myself fortunate to be able to enhance one of our greatest resources even further."

Children's, which employed more than 11,000 last year, is already among the nation's top pediatric hospitals. Its $1.9 billion in net patient revenue for the year ended June 30 was more than that at any other U.S. children's hospital, according to the latest financial filings of major independent pediatric institutions.

Children's ranked second behind Boston Children's Hospital in wealth as measured by unrestricted net assets and in terms of grants from the National Institutes of Health in the year ended Sept. 30.

Perelman's support of research, including general research, is crucial because of flat medical research funding from the federal government, said Steven M. Altschuler, Children's chief executive.

"This gives us opportunities to fund research that wouldn't necessarily be supported by the NIH, both in terms of higher-risk, higher-reward type research and also, as we know, NIH funding is basically flat," Altschuler said.

"We have decided as an organization, if we are going to continue our research mission, fund discovery at the same level, and, hopefully, at the same pace, we are going to be highly dependent upon philanthropy to do this," Altschuler said.

Under those circumstances, the Perelman donation "is a cornerstone and transformational gift," he said.

Perelman's gift to Children's also deepens the Philadelphia native's mark on University City. He gave $225 million to the University of Pennsylvania, which renamed its medical school for him.

Earlier, Perelman donated $25 million to Penn, his alma mater, for the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which opened in 2008 on the former site of the Civic Center.

Children's has also participated in the $2 billion-plus transformation of the former Civic Center site into a major medical complex, opening the $504 million Ruth and Tristram Colket Jr. Translational Research Building, which was completed in 2010.

At the other end of Children's piece of the Civic Center site, the $425 million Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care, named for a family that donated $50 million, is expected to open in the summer.

Between the Buerger Center and the Colket building, Children's plans to construct a 2.7-acre landscaped plaza, including a waterfall and grassy areas. The entire area, including the two new buildings, will be called the Raymond G. Perelman Campus.

Source: Philly.com