When Rosemary Durcan set out to tackle sustainability in healthcare, she found an industry facing a striking paradox: it exists to improve human health, yet contributes more than 4% of global carbon emissions—exceeding aviation—most of which is hidden in supply chains invisible to hospitals and patients. This realization led her to establish Nocomed, a start-up designed to address healthcare’s largest emissions blind spot, securing €650,000 in seed funding from investors including Barry Comerford, Edmund Wilson, and Enterprise Ireland to scale the platform.
Nocomed has developed specialized software that allows medical suppliers to measure and reduce carbon emissions across their operations, combining healthcare digitisation with compliance to emerging climate regulations. The platform automates data collection, applies region-specific emissions factors, and provides actionable insights to help organizations identify and mitigate emissions in complex supply chains, moving beyond one-off reporting to sustained improvement.
Regulatory pressure in Europe is a key driver for adoption, with the NHS requiring suppliers to submit carbon reduction plans and EU sustainability reporting expanding to cover smaller companies. Durcan’s research across 30 companies revealed that while sustainability is increasingly important, many healthcare organizations struggle to know where to start due to complex supply chains and the need for regulatory approval for every product. Nocomed is uniquely positioned to address these challenges, enabling healthcare suppliers to integrate emissions reduction into daily operations.
Durcan’s journey from scientist to entrepreneur began with a science degree, a business qualification, and professional experience at IBEC and Enterprise Ireland. Her breakthrough came through the Dogpatch Labs’ Founders Talent Accelerator, where she met co-founder Dónal Adams, an ex-Apple engineer. Together, they built Nocomed to be a living system, enabling continuous data use for tenders, reporting, and sustainability improvements.
The seed funding will be used primarily for customer pilots, building solutions in collaboration with medical device manufacturers and healthcare suppliers. Key partnerships include Dublin-based Kora Healthcare and Galway-based Avem Marketing Smart Solutions, which supports medtech companies with commercialization and sustainability reporting. By leveraging Ireland’s strong medtech ecosystem, Nocomed can scale efficiently while focusing on Ireland, the UK, and Europe, where regulatory drivers align with the platform’s capabilities.
As a founder in her 50s, Durcan brings experience, focus, and life lessons to the start-up world, challenging conventional founder stereotypes. She emphasizes working with trusted networks, sector-savvy investors, and prioritizing impact over validation. Her mission goes beyond metrics: Nocomed aims to reduce the 4% of global emissions contributed by healthcare, most of which comes from supply chains, while promoting digitization, product management, and behavioral change across the sector.
By providing a practical, sector-specific approach to sustainability, Nocomed is positioned to help healthcare organizations reduce emissions, comply with regulations, and create lasting impact—turning a previously invisible environmental burden into a measurable, manageable, and improvable system.
