College of Pharmacy building named

A college is built on the backs of its supporters, so it seems appropriate that the MUSC College of Pharmacy has one of its supporters back on its building.

The late Michael P. Araneo was a visionary businessman, entrepreneurial pharmacist, and longtime supporter of the MUSC College of Pharmacy. At the December 2018 meeting of the MUSC Board of Trustees, the board approved the College’s request to name the current College of Pharmacy building at 280 Calhoun Street “The Michael P. Araneo Building” in honor of this good friend and benefactor of the College.

“The College of Pharmacy has been in this building for nearly 80 years,” said Philip D. Hall, dean of the MUSC College of Pharmacy. “A tremendous amount of our institutional memory has been made here. Naming the building in honor of Mr. Araneo pays tribute to the integral part he played in enabling many of those memories to be made. In his vision, generosity and spirit, he has been one of the most significant contributors to the overall growth and advancement of the College.”

When the College relocates to its new facility, the Araneo name will go with it and occupy a prominent space within the new structure.

“We wanted to do this now because this building is the most recognizable symbol of our history and we wanted to honor him in it both here and in our future home,” Hall said.

Araneo was a pioneer in discount pharmacy. A New Jersey native, he graduated from the Rutgers University Pharmacy School in 1929 and managed three discount drug stores in Jersey City. He moved to Charleston in 1934 and, by all accounts, changed the face of Lowcountry pharmacy.

Discount pharmacy was a new concept for the area and he opened a series of highly-successful stores. For nearly two decades his store was the leading drug outlet in the city and when he sold his last store in 1950, it was the largest discount store in the Southeast.

In 1999 Araneo made what was, at the time, the largest gift ever to the Medical University: a $4.5 million commitment to support MUSC’s Pharmaceutical Development Center, a cutting-edge facility whose dual mission incorporated educational and industrial opportunities.

A widower of Helene Fitzpatrick Araneo, Michael Araneo passed away in 2000 and was survived by two daughters, Helene Ackerman and Alycia A. Craft; four grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.