Daria Barry: Translating Discovery into Care with Transformational Gift

Daria Barry, a visionary financial strategist and leader at Prospect Capital Corporate (NASDAQ: PSEC) (“Prospect), co-built a successful business helping clients mobilize their assets. Now, leveraging the expertise honed at Prospect, she is channeling her passion into glaucoma research – accelerating future treatments through transformation generosity.

Daria and her husband, John Barry, founded alternative investment manager Prospect Capital Corporation, where Daria serves as Head of Administration and John is Chairman and CEO. Together with their five children, they also oversee the John and Daria Barry Foundation. Although the Foundation traditionally focuses on veterans, education, and the environment, its recent healthcare initiatives reflect Daria’s personal commitment to fighting glaucoma.

Daria understands the surprise many experience when they learn they have this neurodegenerative disease. “I always thought it was something much older people get,” she recalls. Sitting in her specialist’s waiting room for checkups, Daria noticed the broad spectrum of patients affected by glaucoma. And over time, she performed a balancing act familiar to many: multiple medications, administered at different times of day, just to get pressure down. “I don’t know how other people keep up without meticulous notes and a spreadsheet!,” Daria says.

As the disease stole her peripheral vision, Daria’s questions became more urgent. Attending a Glaucoma Research Foundation Patient Summit, Daria was impressed and reached out to learn more. The more she learned, the more she wanted to do something transformative. And what Daria did has truly changed the game for glaucoma research and for patients. 

Through their foundation, Daria and John made a $5 million gift — the largest in our history — to fund a “treatment accelerator” that will help ramp-up new glaucoma therapies. Over the next five years, the Barry Family Treatment Acceleration Fund will distribute grants to speed laboratory breakthroughs from bench to bedside. The first three grants will enable scientists in Glaucoma Research Foundation’s third Catalyst for a Cure initiative to move discoveries in neuroprotection and vision restoration through the testing pipeline toward clinical trials.

Daria’s passion for accelerating treatments is fueled by her compassion for others who share the challenges of life with glaucoma. “We want to apply our resources toward something that could benefit our family and other families,” she says. “We want to put glaucoma on the map as a serious, neurodegenerative illness and speed up the quest for new treatments and a cure.”

Posted on May 7, 2025