Queensland Bionic Voice Box Taking First Steps into US Market
Photo credit: Laronix
Giving a voice to the voiceless: it’s the simply stated yet technically complex mission behind Laronix, the Queensland-based company behind the world’s first natural-sounding artificial voice box for larynx amputees.
A winner of the Bionics Challenge in 2021, Laronix – led by Dr Farzane Ahmadi – is a global pioneer giving a natural-sounding voice to people with voice loss for the very first time.
Not only offering a male or female voice option, the revolutionary technology also gives users back the ability to laugh and even sing – bringing with it great hope to the potentially millions of people globally set to benefit from the device.
With approval from the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the Brisbane-based company is now gearing up to launch its Mark 1 device in the United States.
For Dr Ahmadi, motivation still comes from an email her team received over a decade ago, from a man who had heard about what they were working on and was compelled to reach out.
“He was a young singer and he said, ‘My voice is my life, and I’m going to lose it.’ And I had goosebumps, I still have goosebumps when I say that – because of the many things that happen in the world, this was something that I was trained in to help change. [Finding a solution] became an obsession,” recalled Dr Ahmadi.
The non-invasive electronic device is provided to patients as a wearable headset. The device works by monitoring a person’s respiration using sensors placed outside the neck. Inside the headset, an artificial intelligence (AI) software module mimics the performance of the person’s own vocal folds and generates voice automatically in response to respiration. The generated voice is transferred to the mouth via a thin tube.
Dr Ahmadi credited funding in 2021 and ongoing mentoring support from Bionics Gamechangers, together with the ecosystem being fostered locally, as important steps in driving the evolution of the company.
“Early-stage innovation is very much like a baby, you can’t leave it alone,” said Dr Ahmadi at a recent panel event hosted by Bionics Gamechangers.
“What they [Bionics Gamechangers] are doing is fantastic in terms of making a thriving bionics community here in Queensland and in Australia. That’s something I very much look forward to because a group of people brought together who are running in this same direction would be excellent in terms of mindset, knowledge-sharing and opportunities.”
Check out this Laronix voice box video to watch a wonderful showcase of this device. As you will see, this amazing innovation has already changed lives forever in its clinical trial stage. All Australians will be incredibly proud to see Laronix succeed on the global stage.
