Pye pledges $400K to Parkinson’s research
Truro businessman Garry Pye and his wife Mary-lou have pledged a $400,000 donation in support of Parkinson’s disease research taking place at Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine.
Pye, 74, learned he had Parkinson’s disease a little over ve years ago. Although he has had “the good fortune of staying pretty steady over the years,” the diagnosis left him wanting to help in the ght against it.
“Well that sort of diagnosis is pretty frightening when you rst hear of it,” he said by telephone, from Florida.
“We’ve been lucky in business and we can a ord to make donations. And it’s been made clear to me by Dalhousie that in order to access additional funds they have to have private support locally.”
Pye owns Chevrolet and Toyota dealerships in Truro, along with real estate and other business holdings. He was also a partner in the ownership team of world champion racehorse Somebeachsomewhere.
After meeting Dr. Christopher Mcmaster and learning of the “world- class” research being funded by the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundat ion , Pye said he was “honoured” to be asked to support the work for both personal and societal reasons.”
e Pye’s donation to the research foundation began in 2015 with a gift of $100,000, followed a further $25,000 contribution in 2016. e couple recently pledged another $275,000 over the next ve years to Mcmaster’s team.
e announcement of the nancial donation was made in recognition of Parkinson’s Awareness Month in April.
Parkinson’s disease is a longterm degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly a ects the motor system. Current Parkinson’s disease therapies are focused on providing relief of symptoms and not on preventing the disease from progressing, the release said.
“While alieving the challenging symptoms of Parkinson’s is important, preventing its progression would improve the quality of life and longevity of the 10 million people living with the disease worldwide.”
And that is the premise upon which Mcmaster and his team are working on to develop a novel drug target that has the potential to prevent Parkinson’s disease progression.
“Funds from donors like Garry and Mary-lou Pye have assisted in the recruitment of talent while accelerating drug development and essential testing. e end result, better outcomes for people living with Parkinson’s disease.”