Michael Perrin was born in 1905 in Victoria, British Columbia. He moved to England in 1911, aged six. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, completing a degree in chemistry in 1928 and a physics MA at Toronto University.

Perrin worked for the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) for a number of years, where he helped develop polythene. In the Second World War polythene found a military use, notably as an insulator for radar equipment; in time it became the world's most widely used plastic. The ICI became involved with the initial research into the atomic bomb and after visiting the US and seeing the huge atomic effort undertaken there, wrote a successful report, urging the British government to merge their efforts with the American programme.

In 1953, he became the chairman of Wellcome Foundation LTD. Alongside his work at the foundation, he supported a number of charities and organisations in the fields of science and education, notably St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, the Natural History Museum and the Royal London Veterinary College.

Perrin married Nancy May Curzon in 1936, they had two children. He was knighted in 1967.