A $3 million gift from the Iacocca Family Foundation will help Hoag Hospital expand a program for Type 1 diabetes at the Mary & Dick Allen Diabetes Center, hospital officials announced Monday, July 26.

Hoag will name the Mary & Lee Iacocca Program in Type 1 Diabetes to honor the foundation’s mission to fund diabetes research that could lead to a cure for the disease and alleviate its complications.

Onetime Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. executive Lee Iacocca, who died in 2019, established the foundation in 1984, after his wife, Mary, died from complications of Type 1 diabetes. Since its inception, the Iacocca Family Foundation has funded more than $40 million in promising research projects.

“This gift facilitates research and educational programs to expand our knowledge of diabetes prevention and management and will help provide truly comprehensive, connected and customized care for the lives of people living with diabetes and their families,” Flynn A. Andrizzi, president of the Hoag Hospital Foundation, said.