June 29, 2025 • 39 mins
Medical device innovator Laronix aims to give people who have had their larynx removed due to laryngeal cancer, their voice back. And not a robotic voice, but a natural sounding voice for both men and women where even laughing and singing is possible.
The pioneering company has worked with speech pathologists and surgeons around the world to develop the world’s first smart, wearable (non-invasive), electronic voice box - the first new voice technology in forty years! It uses the power of AI and a person’s respiration signals to generate a natural-sounding voice.
In this episode, we meet Laronix co-founder siblings, CEO Dr. Farzaneh Ahmadi and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Mousa Ahmadi, who share their success story, creating a Brisbane-based manufacturing site, expanding to New York, launching their voicing devices in Australia and the US, and changing the lives of those living with a voice disability and giving hope to cancer survivors (half a million people around the world live with this condition).
Tune into hear a Laronix voice in action!
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi, an expert in artificial voice research, was named as one of Australia’s top 100 Innovators in The Australian in 2024.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Natalie Vella (00:01):
This is the MTP Connect podcast, connecting you
with the people behind thelife-saving innovations driving
Australia's growing lifesciences sector from bench to
bedside for better health andwell-being.
MTP Connect acknowledges thetraditional owners of country
that this podcast is recorded onand recognises that Aboriginal
(00:23):
and Torres Strait Islanderpeoples are Australia's first
storytellers and the holders offirst science knowledge.
Caroline Duell (00:34):
Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Caroline Duell.
For the past 40 years, peoplewho have become voiceless,
losing their larynx to cancerand surgery, have had to rely on
an artificial voice box,surgically implanted that
produces a very robotic sound.
Now that's all changed with anew wearable bionic voicing
(00:55):
device developed in Brisbanethat requires no surgery, using
AI, voice cloning software and apatient's respiration.
It's helping people to findtheir voice again, to speak,
laugh and even sing with a morenatural sounding male or female
voice, and it's manufacturedhere and available in Australia.
Here to tell us more about thisstory of hope and joy are the
(01:19):
co-founders of CEO, , and ChiefOperating Dr Mousa Ahmadi.
Welcome, Farzaneh, and Mousa.
It's great to have you on theMTP Connect Podcast.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (01:32):
Thank you for having us Thank you so much
for having us.
Caroline Duell (01:35):
We've got up in Brisbane, Queensland, and Musa
calling in from New York City inthe US, which is fantastic.
We've got a global link up totalk about pioneering the
development of natural soundingand non-invasive voicing
solutions for people with voiceloss.
can you tell us a bit moreabout voice loss and how does
(01:57):
this happen and how many peopleare impacted by this problem?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (02:02):
Good morning to you and thank you for having
us.
Voice loss is a condition thathappens to people who lost or
damaged their vocal folds.
In that sense, people thatwe're talking about are not
paralyzed they can move theirface and lip muscles.
They just have lost this voicegeneration function of their
larynx, and that's a conditionthat has been untreated for over
(02:26):
40 years without a modernsolution or a remedy.
150 million people globallystruggle with their voice every
year, which results to losingjobs, which, only in the?
U, cost $13 billion to theeconomy.
But voice loss becomes adisabling, major life problem
(02:50):
for around 10 million peopleglobally, including half a
million people who we callpermanent voice loss or
laryngectomy people.
People who have lost theirlarynx entirely because of
throat cancer Around 2 millionpeople every year in intensive
care units.
They lose their voice becauseof respiratory support that they
(03:12):
receive, which makes ICUexperience very painful for them
, and people with neurologicaldisorders around 7.5 million.
They're also destined to losetheir voice over time without
any remedies.
This was sort of a verypressing problem that sort of
inspired us to step in and thenfind a better solution.
Caroline Duell (03:34):
How many people in Australia might be impacted
by this type of voice loss?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (03:40):
In Australia , you will have around close to
100,000 people with neurologicaldisorders, as well as ICU
patients.
Permanent voice loss has asmaller number around 2,000
people in Australia, and again,voice loss is a condition that
can also affect healthy people,including teachers, that, when
(04:04):
it happens, there is no remedy.
So, yeah, that would be thepopulation in Australia.
Caroline Duell (04:10):
You've spent well most of your career
focusing on improving voice losstechnology.
You started studying artificialvoice research and sort of
voice cloning.
What sort of drove you to uploronics and try to come up with
a solution?
Um?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (04:31):
as a person, I'm very communicative and
silence bothers me, right, andalso I I always loved, uh, sort
of humanitarian work, work thatincludes helping people.
So in my PhD research I wasassigned to this project,
essentially by accident, andthen when we were working on it,
(04:53):
a voice loss.
A person who was healthy but wasabout to lose their voice
through the surgical procedureemailed our research group and
he sent a beautiful documentaryof his life and he said I'm a
singer and my voice is my lifeand I'm gonna lose it, but can
any of you guys help me with asolution?
And our answer was like waslike any research group?
(05:18):
Our answer was like, maybe in20 years?
Right, but it bothered me at avery personal level because it
was something that I was trainedto do, but I had no way of
helping him and maybe the way hedescribed his problem sort of
emotionally impacted me as well.
Then it became sort of a lifestory and a career For my PhD
(05:42):
research.
I couldn't find a a solutionbecause we were following what
everyone else was doing for thelast 40 years.
But then when I came toAustralia, I was senior enough
to deviate from the mainstreamand say I think there's time for
a new approach, and that's howthis solution was invented.
Caroline Duell (06:01):
So, farzana, what was the old way of doing
this?
What's the thing that peoplegot stuck on?
Never moved beyond.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (06:08):
So let's take one step back and have a
look at how human larynx worksin voice generation.
Human larynx as I'm speakingnow if I could hypothetically
take my larynx out and listen toit it generates a buzz sound.
So it doesn't generate speech,it just generates something like
a buzz signal and then we shapethat buzz signal into speech
(06:29):
with moving face and lipsmuscles when larynx is gone.
Larynx is such a complicatedorgan that we had no idea how to
simplify it in the absence ofit.
Normal larynx works with acombination of vocal fold
movement, which which gets asignal from the brain.
So like guitar strings, it's,it's a.
(06:50):
It's a very good analogy tolook at guitars, for example,
you put your fingers on thestrings and then you start
tapping, so the signal from thebrain is like finger movement,
finger placement, so it adjustsyour vocal fold to whatever
sound you want to get and thenwhen you breathe out, it
vibrates your vocal folds.
Um, all of that was gone.
So everyone was confused aroundrestructuring that function.
(07:13):
There was one solution which wascalled electoral larynx.
Electoral larynx was like arobot playing that guitar.
So always the same waveform andif, if you do that, yes, the
speech is, you can always excitehuman vocal tract and then get
something out.
So there is an intelligiblespeech, but it sounds terribly
robotic.
(07:33):
Patients hated that.
It was an engineering solution,it was out of the body, so
engineers loved it.
So they kept changing it.
But the problem was electorallarynx required me, as the
speaker, to control my voice allthe time.
But I am not aware of how Icontrol my voice right.
When we speak we don't decidemicromanage our voice, like, for
(07:57):
example, when we say Apple, wedon't decide to turn our voice
on in A, turn it off in P andthen turn it on again in L.
So asking the user to do thatwas pointless.
And for the first four years inmy PhD I also focused on
electoral larynx, like everyoneelse, until I got so frustrated
that when I came to Australia Isaid guys, I'm going to stop
(08:19):
using electoral larynx, I'mgoing to look at whatever else
has worked.
And then we came up with anothersolution which was called
pneumatic larynx.
I'm going to look at whateverelse has worked.
And then we came up withanother solution which was
called pneumatic larynx.
It was an old school solutionthat was driven only by
respiration.
The patient didn't need to domuch, they just breathed through
it, and it was essentially likea human larynx, with a fixed
pair of vocal folds outside thebody, without any nerves, and it
(08:43):
sounded fantastic.
So there was our clue.
Okay, so there is a way toengage respiration, throw away
the nerve signal and get a goodquality voice out of it.
Caroline Duell (08:53):
All we needed to do now was to develop a modern
version of this and that iswhere you've come up with this
bionic voice box, which you'vecalled Ava.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (09:04):
Yeah, that was the birth of.
That was actually a eurekamoment when I when I saw that
and it was the birth of what wecall pneumatic bionic voice,
which is again respiratorydriven and then without any
nerves.
The first product that was bornout of that concept was called
Ava.
Ava in Persian means singingvoice.
(09:25):
They came out of that for areason, because it's actually
the first device that peoplewith voice loss can sing with.
Ava uses synthetic models ofvocal fold.
These are through extensive R&D.
These are designed in a waythat the voice sounds
exceptionally natural.
(09:46):
So, to compare, this is asample quality of how people
with prior solutions sounded andthis is the sample quality of
Ava.
Caroline Duell (10:06):
Hello, my name is John and I'm from New York,
and I hope you have a nice day.
Bye-bye.
It's hugely different.
I can hear an accent in thesecond speaker and it sounds
much more natural.
Yeah.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (10:25):
Sounds like a real person and it's meant to
be biologically relevant.
So we are not asking thepatient to do anything beyond
what they did before, Becauseall of us, when we speak, we
exhale.
So that's what they need to doand the rest the device looks
after.
Caroline Duell (10:42):
And it's a device that you don't have to
implant, so it sits on theoutside of the person's throat
area where the larynx would sitbehind.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (10:51):
Yes, so AVA is specific to permanent voice
loss.
Permanent voice loss peoplebreathe through their neck,
through the opening in the neckcalled stoma.
So AVA sits on this on this stand, like I said, it has a model
of human vocal folds in it.
It connects to the natural lung.
The lung drives this new vocalfold, it's out of the body and
the sound goes to the mouth viaa tube.
(11:14):
That's generation one.
And then we went one step aheadbecause we were thinking how
about people who have lost theirvoice but they don't have a
hole in their neck?
So we made another devicecalled Mira.
Mira has both a small versionof human lungs and a small
version of vocal folds in it, soit does both functions, so you
(11:36):
don't need the patient to driveit with their lungs anymore and
on that sense Mira has a muchlarger footprint to help anyone
with voice problems.
Caroline Duell (11:46):
Does it sit in the same area on the throat like
on the neck?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (11:51):
No, mira is a handheld device which
essentially using a combinationof those vocal, fold and lung
models.
It just needs a tube that goesto the mouth and the patient
speaks with it.
Caroline Duell (12:06):
And tell us about the tube itself.
It's connected to the device,but it's like a straw, a plastic
straw you just sit it in theside of your mouth.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (12:15):
Exactly.
So when you want to generatevoice for people, in the end of
the day that voice has to go tothe mouth because they want to
speak with it.
The beauty of a human mouth andin the oral system is that it
doesn't matter where you exciteit, as long as you pass the
sound to the mouth.
So our device has that sort ofvisible component to it.
(12:36):
But we normally say if you havean eyesight problem, you wear
glasses.
If you have a voice problem.
There is a small tube that it'sa sort of small compensation for
the fact that we don't want tomake an invasive sort of like.
We don't want to go through thethroat.
So, yes, there's a small tubethat goes to the mouth.
Caroline Duell (12:54):
This really sounds like a huge development
for people with voice loss andno voice, with all sorts of
voice problems, and the feedbackyou must have had from patients
as we're developing this mustbe absolutely critical.
Tell us a bit about that.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (13:10):
Pass on to Musa.
One of the things that is thatI'm actually very pleased to
have is, I mean, in addition tofantastic co-founder, he's also
a UX expert.
I came to this sort of from atechnology perspective and then
he connected us to the userexperience.
So, passing on to you, musa, goahead.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (13:30):
So over the past two years we have done
multiple trials of the deviceswith patients laryngectomy
patients, tracheostomy patients,patients with neurological
disorders and then the feedbackis especially for the
laryngectomy population.
There's been such high levelsof discretion for an effective
solution that the first momentsare just, you know, wow moments.
(13:54):
A lot of the patients that wework with, first of all, 100% of
the patients that we havetrialed the device have spoke
with our device, 100%.
We haven't had any patient thatwas not able to speak with the
device, which is very excitingto us.
Voice loss is a veryinteresting condition because
these are patients who didn'tspeak for 10, 20.
We have had patients who didn'tspeak for 40 years and then now
(14:18):
we are seeing these very, veryfirst moments that these
patients are speaking for thefirst time and they're very
emotional moments.
Uh, we have seen a lot of them.
You know, in many cases thefirst thing that they say is how
much they love their familymembers that are there with them
, and you know how they like theopportunity to connect with
others around them.
(14:38):
Again, uh, we have had somecases that even you know people
wanted.
You know they wanted to saysomething for many, many years.
It was like ball up and thennow they were able to
communicate that and then forthe first time, all of those
thoughts were coming through.
Another feedback that we got,and that's my favorite, is that
when the patients take thedevices home so they go from
(14:58):
someone who was not able tospeak, or like had a very low
volume voice, to someone whocould talk back now, or like
talk over people and thenexpress their thoughts and
opinions, you know, at a like,talk over people and then
express their thoughts andopinions at a family dinner or
something, and then you knowthat you know be part of that
conversation again.
So the feedback has been great.
We've been very excited aboutthat.
Um, you know, over time we hadone, you know, these patients
(15:21):
are going back to their social,professional life that they have
had.
We had one patient veryrecently who was a veteran and
then he was comparing, using ourdevices, to the moment that he
came back from the war and howhe turned, you know, went back
to the society and was be ableto, you know, feel that he was
belonging again.
(15:42):
And then you know he was sayingthat by, by him talking again,
he feels like he's back again.
He's back to the society, he'sback with his friends and you
know he was saying that by himtalking again, he feels like
he's back again.
He's back to the society, he'sback with his friends and, you
know, family members, and youknow he was really sharing that
feeling with us.
Caroline Duell (15:56):
And so you can also laugh as well with this
device we take for granted don'twe?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (16:02):
There are things that we do as part of
normal speaking that waspossible with our device but not
with other solutions, like, forexample, hums or pauses and
then laughters, and then thepossibility of showing emotions,
and then the patient takes andruns with it.
We have one lovely gentlemanwho actually started singing
(16:25):
with it, so we provided singinglessons for him, and, given that
this is a community with a lotof pain and depression, it's
actually very admiring that theytake that extra effort to see
what is possible with thisdevice really on this sort of
(16:50):
technology, ai side of things,which is where you've been able
to sort of really develop thisdevice to something that's quite
groundbreaking, can you explainhow you've sort of designed the
technology to produce apatient's voice?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (17:01):
Absolutely, and the career doesn't go to me
specifically, it goes to theentire team who is really
hardworking and works on this.
So, with our devices, as Ferrymentioned, the plan has been to
release multiple devices overthe time and then not really
wait for this ultimatetechnology.
That could take many, manyyears.
So we do have plans to have adevice that has this state of
(17:26):
artificial intelligence and thegoal is to really really develop
that original voice, the voicethat the patient had there, you
know, prior to the surgery, geta recording of that, resemble
that and really recreate that.
And that's a device that wecall Bionic Voice, as you know,
and it's something that we'replanning to release in the
future.
In the meantime, with ourdevices, with AvaVoice and
(17:48):
MiraVoice, what we have done iswe designed customizable vocal
folds in the device and thoseprovide a high level degree of
customization.
So for right now, the patientscould try you know three, four,
you know we're trying to makethat six voice profiles and then
choose one that connects withthem closely.
(18:09):
There is a very significantgroup of this population that
are female patients and thenthese patients have been stuck
with a male sounding voice, withelectrolarynx or with the other
conventional treatment and withour devices and we're very
excited that we're working onthat so we now have vocal folds
(18:29):
that create that feminine voicefor these patients so that's a
different tone, a differentright, different octave higher
lower exactly, exactly, yeah,and and, and you know we're
finalizing our rnd with that andthen you know, with those
patients, you know it has it's a.
Our voices are a very, a veryhuge part of our identity, and
(18:51):
then being able to recreate thatand make sure that the voice
that is generated is matchingthe identity of the patients,
the female patients, it's a verybig, big quality of life
improvement.
So with that we have approachedit very closely and what about
things like different languages?
Caroline Duell (19:07):
Is it adaptable for different types of languages
?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (19:11):
That's a great question.
So we primarily have tested thedevice with English and Spanish
speakers, but we are workingwith other patients.
We have had patients who arespeaking Mandarin and there are
some differences in terms of howthe device is being used.
So, for example, some of thepatients need to adjust the tube
a little bit differently tofind the articulators that
(19:34):
really create that speech, butprimarily language independent.
So in most cases we are able torecreate that voice, but then,
with some different training,patients are able to speak the
language that they have.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (19:50):
As Musa said , yes, the device is language
independent.
It can actually generate, alsogenerate Chinese language, so we
can, for the first time,provide micro.
As you know, chinese is a tonallanguage that you need to
change intonation inside theboard and this device has the
capacity of doing that as well.
If that's okay, I wanted to add, like a comparison of the
(20:14):
quality of our voices this waswhat it was like, and I picked
it up pretty quickly.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (20:21):
Nothing will make you feel as out there as
you need an ability to helpsomebody else when they really
need it.
Caroline Duell (20:30):
It's so different.
It really is, and it's great tohear that difference and you
really feel like you can hearthe person behind the voice.
This is a really interestingsort of partnership that you
have as siblings Moosa you're inthe US and Farzana out here in
Australia, which is why you'vegot sort of a US-Australian base
, and that's really also helpedto shape your clinical trial
(20:54):
program.
Do you want to tell us aboutwhat that's involved and working
with hospitals, clinicians,speech pathologists?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (21:05):
so one of the things that differentiates
Laronix against many medicalcompanies is actually, we have a
very active arm in engagingwith the market, which is kudos
to Musa and his sort ofstrategic thinking about
connecting innovation to theuser.
Pass it on to him.
He normally interrupts us inthe middle of development.
(21:27):
This is good enough, let's go.
So okay, back to you, musa.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (21:32):
So when we started the Laronix project, one
of the things that we learnedquickly was that, in addition to
us being a technical team,there's also a group of very
dedicated clinicians who reallywant to see a change in this
domain, who know about thelimitations of what's available
and they want to see theirpatients, you know, being
(21:53):
successful and then be able tothrive and speak to the devices.
So what we did was we invited alot of these clinicians to
engage with us.
We started with some of theclinics and then gradually
developed that network.
We started with five clinicsand then now the network that we
have is around 30 very activeengagements that we have with
(22:15):
these hospitals with around 70clinicians.
These are speech languagepathologists and then
ex-surgeons and also nurses.
So with that we were able toget a lot of feedback about what
these clinicians want, and thenyou know what the patients are
saying about the devices.
But every time, as Fahrimentioned, understand where the
(22:37):
product should be to satisfyclinicians and patients, but
also if they think you know thatfeedback about the product,
about things that need toimprove or things that need to
change, we could quickly have acall with our team and then
convey the message from theclinicians to them and then we
could right away fix the productand then bring it back to them.
So because there is, theElectroLines was the technology
(23:01):
from 40 years ago.
That never changed.
When clinicians these dedicatedclinicians see that we are
changing our product every dayand every month and every you
know a couple of weeks, they getvery excited and they really
believe in our mission.
They understand that we arehere to make a difference and
we're not going to give up.
We just keep innovating till wereally get that, you know
(23:22):
product market fits right andwe're very on track to do that.
Caroline Duell (23:26):
And how critical has that feedback from the,
particularly that medicalecosystem being in the success
of, you know, actually gettingthe product to market.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (23:36):
Very, very critical.
One of the things that welearned early on was that we
really focus on the product andthen how the product should
perform, but at the same time,we learned that the product
should really fit the clinicalsetting that these products are
going to be used in terms of thepatient experience, what they
(23:58):
need when they come in or whathappens when they take the
devices home.
So we change a lot of processesaround that to make sure that,
you know, clinicians are happywith the processes that we have,
and we also had some of theclinicians join the team.
We have some of our reps whohave very in-depth clinical
expertise and then now they tellus everything that we need to
(24:20):
know, but then it's a little bitfaster and then we understand
the process a little bit better.
So the feedback has beencritical.
A lot of the clinicians that weare working with they actually
joined our clinical advisoryboard because they saw that we
are making progress and we are,you know, getting closer and
closer and closer to the goal,and now we have this like very
(24:43):
close loop of the feedback thatis coming in every day about
everything that we need tochange.
Some of the clinicians have mynumber too, so I always get
messages about everything thatthey like and they don't like
about the product.
But you know I love it and youknow we always welcome that and
you know it's a very good, youknow dynamic.
Caroline Duell (25:02):
So good news for people with voice loss is that
your product is available in theUS as well as Australia.
Late last year you got TGAclearance, so this is amazing.
Tell us about.
You know what that part of thejourney has been like.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (25:19):
So we have so far.
I always say what is yournumber?
Our number is 147 people, dailyusers of evolve, uh, and if we
might say, we pride our, wepride ourselves into changing
147 lives so far.
Um, the, the mission is to getthese to 300 000 uh in seven
(25:43):
years.
So that's what we are fightingfor.
Yeah, and, as you said, theproduct is commercially
available in Australia and theUS now for permanent voice loss
people, which is actually, toour understanding, the most
critical group of people.
Sadly, before us, they had ahigh suicide rate as well.
(26:04):
So we're very humbled,delighted and passionate about
helping them.
And with our second product,mira, we are providing early
access to that too.
So for people who we haveteenagers, for example, who are
trying it, for people who haveother types of voice loss, we
can also have considerationsaround enrolling them for the
(26:27):
MIRA trial program.
Caroline Duell (26:30):
And so you've set up a manufacturing site in
Queensland.
Is that correct?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (26:36):
Yeah, we have an ISOC certified
manufacturing plant with acapacity of 1,000 units, 1,000
patients per year.
It has been ISO audited twice,two subsequent years and last
year we had zeronon-conformities.
Yeah, it has.
We maintain a high quality ofthe product to ensure patients
(26:57):
and clinician satisfaction.
Very proud to be an Australianmanufacturing site and we have
expansion plans for up to 3000patients per year with a similar
sort of setup and after that wewill expand to mass
manufacturing.
Caroline Duell (27:16):
That's really exciting.
Australian made, that'swonderful.
Is there a bit of word of moutharound this device for the
speech pathology community andand the the oncology area as
well?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (27:29):
yes, very, very much so.
So, um, sometimes we see a newwave of clinicians and patients
approaching us and when thathappens, we understand there was
a word of mouth, like you know,clinicians speaking to each
other and telling each otherabout engaging with us.
So we have had a veryconsistent track record of being
(27:51):
available for clinicians andproviding product trials and
that consistency have.
You know, we created a goodreputation and good trust among
clinicians in the company and wesee some you know screenshots
of them that clinicians sharethat, like you know, them
posting on their Facebook groupsabout their experiences, you
know, and then the otherclinicians getting encouraged to
(28:13):
, you know, engage with us anddo that, yeah, how long does it
take a new patient to learn howto use the technology?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (28:22):
Depending on the patient, sometimes two
hours, sometimes up to eighthours of speech pathology
sessions In the US, because wehave a smaller number of sort of
Medicare paid sessions, peopleare more agile to learn.
Our Australian sort of friendstake their time.
They essentially can speak fromday one.
(28:44):
They can speak words.
It's a matter of learning tospeak with the tube in their
mouth and learning to managetheir respiration so that they
have enough airflow for a sortof full conversation.
But yeah, it's relatively again, because it's very close to the
body works anyway.
So a lot of our training isabout taking the patient out of
(29:06):
too much focus on it.
We say this is what you need.
Caroline Duell (29:09):
You used to do, so just get back to that mode,
yeah do you feel as if it's likethe next cochlear?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (29:16):
oh, we admire cochlear and, yeah, we,
we would love to follow thelegacy of Cochlear.
So, essentially, at the moment,whatever the Cochlear is and I
just want to sort of theCochlear has helped 700,000
people with their technology,and that's an Australian dream.
Like I said, we are projecting300,000 in seven years.
(29:39):
So that's the plan.
That's the plan and we wouldlove to actually step in there.
But our technology isnon-invasive, which essentially
grows much faster, and yet wehave just started.
So, as we sort of showed youlike, at the moment we have
generic male and female voices.
Sometimes we get completelynatural, depending on the
(30:02):
patient use of the device.
But we want to do a lot more.
We want to bring soprano alto,like a wide range of voices,
similar to wide range, range ofeyeglasses, because in the end
of the day the vocal fold has tomatch the person and that gives
them a wider range of speech,wider range of singing.
(30:23):
But our mission has beenenabling anyone who doesn't have
a voice to to sort of get backto to life.
And we started with the withthe focus on delivering
something early because thecondition was dire.
So one thing that I normallyrealize is that the way healthy
people think about voice loss isvery different than the way
(30:43):
that a person actually without avoice thinks about it.
Healthy people want a sort ofan AI enabled hands-free headset
version mode of the device, andthat's something that we
generally like organically gettowards, but for voice loss
people it's a necessity.
It's something that needed tobe there as early as possible.
(31:07):
So we strategised aroundaddressing this dire need as
early as possible and then wecontinue our R&D to develop the
next version.
Caroline Duell (31:17):
Yeah, which is fantastic.
So you know, people don't haveto wait another 10 years.
They've got something to get onliving with and you're just
refining it through that patientexperience and with new
technology and it's reallyexciting and that's a very
ambitious target.
But also, because it'snon-invasive, you don't have to
have it implanted.
(31:38):
That's reducing the cost, likeit's a much more cost-e
efficient medical device, whichis very appealing.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (31:46):
That's a great point.
So we actually did a recentanalysis on the cost that could
be reduced by our device beingadopted in hospitals in
Australia and US being adoptedin hospitals in Australia and US
and the analysis showed that,you know, with the devices like
AvaVoice, the price could bebrought down by up to 87%, which
(32:09):
is quite significant.
And we're talking also aboutthe huge burden in terms of
amount of work for cliniciansbut also for patients to, you
know, maintain some of thesolutions and you know, maintain
some of the solutions and youknow, overall, like a better
experience with you know, thisjourney and also that better
outcome on the other side.
Caroline Duell (32:29):
Well, what a fantastic place to be sitting in
the start of the next phase ofthe company.
Do you have any tips that you'dlike to share with anyone who's
kind of you know in the flow ofgetting their medical device
prototype ready for clinicaltrials or taking into clinical
trials?
I think your journey is quiteunique and you've obviously been
very persistent in believingthat you could come up with a
(32:52):
better solution.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (32:54):
Well, every journey is different, obviously,
but my biggest learning throughthis experience, thanks to Musa
, is get to market as quickly aspossible, get to use it as
quickly as possible.
There is no point beingidealistic about your product.
Everyone wants to be idealistic, always right, and the better
is the enemy of good, you know.
So if we restarted this journey, we would have released our
(33:18):
beta version much quicker.
Journey, we would have releasedour beta version much quicker.
And the Silicon Valley sort ofmantra is that if you release
your MVP by the time that youare not embarrassed by it, you
have released it late.
Yeah, so it has to be as quickas possible.
Get to the user and startcapturing user feedback.
Establish product market fit,and then again we can be
(33:39):
perfectionist about productmarket fit, and then again we
can be perfectionist aboutproduct market fit.
But again, if there is apossibility of early release and
then get a better market share,build a user case, that's the
best opportunity to go for.
We went for a sort of while toraise funding for it and our
messaging was, like you know,amazing take, do you want to
(34:01):
invest or not?
And and then we went to anaccelerator program in New York
and the first thing they said,which was a huge mental shift
for us, was stop talking toinvestors and start talking to
your users.
It was, it was sort of turningpoint for us and that was the
point that we actually shiftedour direction, went to hospitals
and and then investments came.
(34:21):
Because when you are havingactually that active dialogue,
then things fall in place.
I sometimes regret to see sosome of our folks in in
australian may take take a lotof time sort of perfecting a
product on the bench while theuse case is not yet there.
So the sooner they can get itto I I mean pending regulatories
(34:44):
, of course, because that's abig hurdle but the sooner they
can get it to user change thelife of the company.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (34:52):
Definitely echoing everything that Larry
said.
On top of that, you know,medical device innovation domain
is filled with experts whoreally have gone through similar
experiences, have done similarproducts if not exactly the same
product but then, for example,work in the same domain, work
(35:14):
with the same clinicians, withthe same hospitals, and I highly
recommend seeking input fromthese experts who, a lot of them
, provide this expertise forfree because they really care
about patient health and, youknow, improving healthcare.
One of the things that we do inthe beginning, you know, was
(35:34):
that we try to, you know, figureeverything out from scratch
ourselves by really sit down andthinking and, you know, putting
a full, you know roadmaptogether.
But then we realized that bytalking to someone who has done
this and then has gone throughthis, we could save significant
amounts of time and really, youknow, connect with the patients
and the clinicians and then, youknow, work on the product.
(35:55):
So I recommend seeking adviceand then not being ashamed for
it and understand that there arepeople who are really, really
willing to provide that and bepart of the journey of the, you
know ventures who are innovatingin this domain.
Caroline Duell (36:11):
When did you realize that pretty much this
was your journey to take withdeveloping this product?
Like you couldn't find anyoneinterested in helping
commercialise it, you justdecided we've got to go for it.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (36:24):
Oh yeah, that's a very good question.
So yeah, when this was inventedin uni in Australia Western
Sydney University at the timeand at the time Musa was a PhD
student in UX as well, so wewere going different, like
separate lives, but we talked alot about it and we approached a
lot of big names Google was oneparticularly, because I spent
(36:48):
like about six months talking toGoogle and in the end they said
, look, big companies do notdevelop technologies from
scratch because unless it getsto a certain point, so you go
develop it and then come andtalk to us.
So over time and the universitywas giving me the option of
going to the teaching life, sowe realized that if that would
(37:13):
be the case, then no oneactually conversed with this
technology and we get quitegenuinely, we got waves and
waves of people emailing andtrying to have it.
That was the time that the thestory of the invention was
getting out, because westernsydney university had put a
story called this discovery.
That has changed one, of course, research worldwide, um, so it
(37:33):
became sort of a choice, whetheris it us or not, and then we
decided, and then Musa coinedthe word Laronix, and then we
decided that if there's onething that we want to do in a
lifetime.
That's going to be it, and westepped to this.
We step into this journey verypositively and and then we we've
(37:58):
solved the problems thathappened over the journey.
But yeah, that was the intentionand so it became a mandate.
And the more we talked tovoiceless people, the more we
saw the case of depression, themore personal this problem
became for us, because,literally, they don't have any
voice to defend themselves.
That's the reality of it voiceto defend themselves.
(38:22):
That that's the reality of it,alongside all the learnings of
converting a good technology toan excellent business case,
which you should learn asco-founders.
But what happened in the backof our mind and inside our heart
is any patient that gets theirvoice back.
It's sort of like a huge fuelto this engine for us and we get
inspired to continue that well.
Caroline Duell (38:41):
I can see and hear the passion that is driving
um loronics, andcongratulations to your teams in
the us and in australia.
It's a very exciting stage forthe company and we really wish
you all the best for yourcontinued product development
and the work that you're doingto help people with voice loss,
(39:01):
which will hopefully take thismedical device around the world.
That was Leronix co-founders,dr Farzana Ahmadi and Dr Musa
Ahmadi, a dynamic sister andbrother duo, talking about how
they have developed the world'sfirst smart wearable electronic
voice box, giving people whohave lost their larynx their
(39:22):
natural sounding voice back.
You've been listening to theMTP Connect podcast.
This podcast is produced on thelands of the Wurundjeri people
here in Narm, melbourne.
Thanks for listening to theshow.
If you love what you heard,share our podcast and follow us
for more Until next time.
This is the MTP Connect podcast, connecting you
with the people behind thelife-saving innovations driving
Australia's growing lifesciences sector from bench to
bedside for better health andwell-being.
MTP Connect acknowledges thetraditional owners of country
that this podcast is recorded onand recognises that Aboriginal
(00:23):
and Torres Strait Islanderpeoples are Australia's first
storytellers and the holders offirst science knowledge.
Caroline Duell (00:34):
Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Caroline Duell.
For the past 40 years, peoplewho have become voiceless,
losing their larynx to cancerand surgery, have had to rely on
an artificial voice box,surgically implanted that
produces a very robotic sound.
Now that's all changed with anew wearable bionic voicing
(00:55):
device developed in Brisbanethat requires no surgery, using
AI, voice cloning software and apatient's respiration.
It's helping people to findtheir voice again, to speak,
laugh and even sing with a morenatural sounding male or female
voice, and it's manufacturedhere and available in Australia.
Here to tell us more about thisstory of hope and joy are the
(01:19):
co-founders of CEO, , and ChiefOperating Dr Mousa Ahmadi.
Welcome, Farzaneh, and Mousa.
It's great to have you on theMTP Connect Podcast.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (01:32):
Thank you for having us Thank you so much
for having us.
Caroline Duell (01:35):
We've got up in Brisbane, Queensland, and Musa
calling in from New York City inthe US, which is fantastic.
We've got a global link up totalk about pioneering the
development of natural soundingand non-invasive voicing
solutions for people with voiceloss.
can you tell us a bit moreabout voice loss and how does
(01:57):
this happen and how many peopleare impacted by this problem?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (02:02):
Good morning to you and thank you for having
us.
Voice loss is a condition thathappens to people who lost or
damaged their vocal folds.
In that sense, people thatwe're talking about are not
paralyzed they can move theirface and lip muscles.
They just have lost this voicegeneration function of their
larynx, and that's a conditionthat has been untreated for over
(02:26):
40 years without a modernsolution or a remedy.
150 million people globallystruggle with their voice every
year, which results to losingjobs, which, only in the?
U, cost $13 billion to theeconomy.
But voice loss becomes adisabling, major life problem
(02:50):
for around 10 million peopleglobally, including half a
million people who we callpermanent voice loss or
laryngectomy people.
People who have lost theirlarynx entirely because of
throat cancer Around 2 millionpeople every year in intensive
care units.
They lose their voice becauseof respiratory support that they
(03:12):
receive, which makes ICUexperience very painful for them
, and people with neurologicaldisorders around 7.5 million.
They're also destined to losetheir voice over time without
any remedies.
This was sort of a verypressing problem that sort of
inspired us to step in and thenfind a better solution.
Caroline Duell (03:34):
How many people in Australia might be impacted
by this type of voice loss?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (03:40):
In Australia , you will have around close to
100,000 people with neurologicaldisorders, as well as ICU
patients.
Permanent voice loss has asmaller number around 2,000
people in Australia, and again,voice loss is a condition that
can also affect healthy people,including teachers, that, when
(04:04):
it happens, there is no remedy.
So, yeah, that would be thepopulation in Australia.
Caroline Duell (04:10):
You've spent well most of your career
focusing on improving voice losstechnology.
You started studying artificialvoice research and sort of
voice cloning.
What sort of drove you to uploronics and try to come up with
a solution?
Um?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (04:31):
as a person, I'm very communicative and
silence bothers me, right, andalso I I always loved, uh, sort
of humanitarian work, work thatincludes helping people.
So in my PhD research I wasassigned to this project,
essentially by accident, andthen when we were working on it,
(04:53):
a voice loss.
A person who was healthy but wasabout to lose their voice
through the surgical procedureemailed our research group and
he sent a beautiful documentaryof his life and he said I'm a
singer and my voice is my lifeand I'm gonna lose it, but can
any of you guys help me with asolution?
And our answer was like waslike any research group?
(05:18):
Our answer was like, maybe in20 years?
Right, but it bothered me at avery personal level because it
was something that I was trainedto do, but I had no way of
helping him and maybe the way hedescribed his problem sort of
emotionally impacted me as well.
Then it became sort of a lifestory and a career For my PhD
(05:42):
research.
I couldn't find a a solutionbecause we were following what
everyone else was doing for thelast 40 years.
But then when I came toAustralia, I was senior enough
to deviate from the mainstreamand say I think there's time for
a new approach, and that's howthis solution was invented.
Caroline Duell (06:01):
So, farzana, what was the old way of doing
this?
What's the thing that peoplegot stuck on?
Never moved beyond.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (06:08):
So let's take one step back and have a
look at how human larynx worksin voice generation.
Human larynx as I'm speakingnow if I could hypothetically
take my larynx out and listen toit it generates a buzz sound.
So it doesn't generate speech,it just generates something like
a buzz signal and then we shapethat buzz signal into speech
(06:29):
with moving face and lipsmuscles when larynx is gone.
Larynx is such a complicatedorgan that we had no idea how to
simplify it in the absence ofit.
Normal larynx works with acombination of vocal fold
movement, which which gets asignal from the brain.
So like guitar strings, it's,it's a.
(06:50):
It's a very good analogy tolook at guitars, for example,
you put your fingers on thestrings and then you start
tapping, so the signal from thebrain is like finger movement,
finger placement, so it adjustsyour vocal fold to whatever
sound you want to get and thenwhen you breathe out, it
vibrates your vocal folds.
Um, all of that was gone.
So everyone was confused aroundrestructuring that function.
(07:13):
There was one solution which wascalled electoral larynx.
Electoral larynx was like arobot playing that guitar.
So always the same waveform andif, if you do that, yes, the
speech is, you can always excitehuman vocal tract and then get
something out.
So there is an intelligiblespeech, but it sounds terribly
robotic.
(07:33):
Patients hated that.
It was an engineering solution,it was out of the body, so
engineers loved it.
So they kept changing it.
But the problem was electorallarynx required me, as the
speaker, to control my voice allthe time.
But I am not aware of how Icontrol my voice right.
When we speak we don't decidemicromanage our voice, like, for
(07:57):
example, when we say Apple, wedon't decide to turn our voice
on in A, turn it off in P andthen turn it on again in L.
So asking the user to do thatwas pointless.
And for the first four years inmy PhD I also focused on
electoral larynx, like everyoneelse, until I got so frustrated
that when I came to Australia Isaid guys, I'm going to stop
(08:19):
using electoral larynx, I'mgoing to look at whatever else
has worked.
And then we came up with anothersolution which was called
pneumatic larynx.
I'm going to look at whateverelse has worked.
And then we came up withanother solution which was
called pneumatic larynx.
It was an old school solutionthat was driven only by
respiration.
The patient didn't need to domuch, they just breathed through
it, and it was essentially likea human larynx, with a fixed
pair of vocal folds outside thebody, without any nerves, and it
(08:43):
sounded fantastic.
So there was our clue.
Okay, so there is a way toengage respiration, throw away
the nerve signal and get a goodquality voice out of it.
Caroline Duell (08:53):
All we needed to do now was to develop a modern
version of this and that iswhere you've come up with this
bionic voice box, which you'vecalled Ava.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (09:04):
Yeah, that was the birth of.
That was actually a eurekamoment when I when I saw that
and it was the birth of what wecall pneumatic bionic voice,
which is again respiratorydriven and then without any
nerves.
The first product that was bornout of that concept was called
Ava.
Ava in Persian means singingvoice.
(09:25):
They came out of that for areason, because it's actually
the first device that peoplewith voice loss can sing with.
Ava uses synthetic models ofvocal fold.
These are through extensive R&D.
These are designed in a waythat the voice sounds
exceptionally natural.
(09:46):
So, to compare, this is asample quality of how people
with prior solutions sounded andthis is the sample quality of
Ava.
Caroline Duell (10:06):
Hello, my name is John and I'm from New York,
and I hope you have a nice day.
Bye-bye.
It's hugely different.
I can hear an accent in thesecond speaker and it sounds
much more natural.
Yeah.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (10:25):
Sounds like a real person and it's meant to
be biologically relevant.
So we are not asking thepatient to do anything beyond
what they did before, Becauseall of us, when we speak, we
exhale.
So that's what they need to doand the rest the device looks
after.
Caroline Duell (10:42):
And it's a device that you don't have to
implant, so it sits on theoutside of the person's throat
area where the larynx would sitbehind.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (10:51):
Yes, so AVA is specific to permanent voice
loss.
Permanent voice loss peoplebreathe through their neck,
through the opening in the neckcalled stoma.
So AVA sits on this on this stand, like I said, it has a model
of human vocal folds in it.
It connects to the natural lung.
The lung drives this new vocalfold, it's out of the body and
the sound goes to the mouth viaa tube.
(11:14):
That's generation one.
And then we went one step aheadbecause we were thinking how
about people who have lost theirvoice but they don't have a
hole in their neck?
So we made another devicecalled Mira.
Mira has both a small versionof human lungs and a small
version of vocal folds in it, soit does both functions, so you
(11:36):
don't need the patient to driveit with their lungs anymore and
on that sense Mira has a muchlarger footprint to help anyone
with voice problems.
Caroline Duell (11:46):
Does it sit in the same area on the throat like
on the neck?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (11:51):
No, mira is a handheld device which
essentially using a combinationof those vocal, fold and lung
models.
It just needs a tube that goesto the mouth and the patient
speaks with it.
Caroline Duell (12:06):
And tell us about the tube itself.
It's connected to the device,but it's like a straw, a plastic
straw you just sit it in theside of your mouth.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (12:15):
Exactly.
So when you want to generatevoice for people, in the end of
the day that voice has to go tothe mouth because they want to
speak with it.
The beauty of a human mouth andin the oral system is that it
doesn't matter where you exciteit, as long as you pass the
sound to the mouth.
So our device has that sort ofvisible component to it.
(12:36):
But we normally say if you havean eyesight problem, you wear
glasses.
If you have a voice problem.
There is a small tube that it'sa sort of small compensation for
the fact that we don't want tomake an invasive sort of like.
We don't want to go through thethroat.
So, yes, there's a small tubethat goes to the mouth.
Caroline Duell (12:54):
This really sounds like a huge development
for people with voice loss andno voice, with all sorts of
voice problems, and the feedbackyou must have had from patients
as we're developing this mustbe absolutely critical.
Tell us a bit about that.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (13:10):
Pass on to Musa.
One of the things that is thatI'm actually very pleased to
have is, I mean, in addition tofantastic co-founder, he's also
a UX expert.
I came to this sort of from atechnology perspective and then
he connected us to the userexperience.
So, passing on to you, musa, goahead.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (13:30):
So over the past two years we have done
multiple trials of the deviceswith patients laryngectomy
patients, tracheostomy patients,patients with neurological
disorders and then the feedbackis especially for the
laryngectomy population.
There's been such high levelsof discretion for an effective
solution that the first momentsare just, you know, wow moments.
(13:54):
A lot of the patients that wework with, first of all, 100% of
the patients that we havetrialed the device have spoke
with our device, 100%.
We haven't had any patient thatwas not able to speak with the
device, which is very excitingto us.
Voice loss is a veryinteresting condition because
these are patients who didn'tspeak for 10, 20.
We have had patients who didn'tspeak for 40 years and then now
(14:18):
we are seeing these very, veryfirst moments that these
patients are speaking for thefirst time and they're very
emotional moments.
Uh, we have seen a lot of them.
You know, in many cases thefirst thing that they say is how
much they love their familymembers that are there with them
, and you know how they like theopportunity to connect with
others around them.
(14:38):
Again, uh, we have had somecases that even you know people
wanted.
You know they wanted to saysomething for many, many years.
It was like ball up and thennow they were able to
communicate that and then forthe first time, all of those
thoughts were coming through.
Another feedback that we got,and that's my favorite, is that
when the patients take thedevices home so they go from
(14:58):
someone who was not able tospeak, or like had a very low
volume voice, to someone whocould talk back now, or like
talk over people and thenexpress their thoughts and
opinions, you know, at a like,talk over people and then
express their thoughts andopinions at a family dinner or
something, and then you knowthat you know be part of that
conversation again.
So the feedback has been great.
We've been very excited aboutthat.
Um, you know, over time we hadone, you know, these patients
(15:21):
are going back to their social,professional life that they have
had.
We had one patient veryrecently who was a veteran and
then he was comparing, using ourdevices, to the moment that he
came back from the war and howhe turned, you know, went back
to the society and was be ableto, you know, feel that he was
belonging again.
(15:42):
And then you know he was sayingthat by, by him talking again,
he feels like he's back again.
He's back to the society, he'sback with his friends and you
know he was saying that by himtalking again, he feels like
he's back again.
He's back to the society, he'sback with his friends and, you
know, family members, and youknow he was really sharing that
feeling with us.
Caroline Duell (15:56):
And so you can also laugh as well with this
device we take for granted don'twe?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (16:02):
There are things that we do as part of
normal speaking that waspossible with our device but not
with other solutions, like, forexample, hums or pauses and
then laughters, and then thepossibility of showing emotions,
and then the patient takes andruns with it.
We have one lovely gentlemanwho actually started singing
(16:25):
with it, so we provided singinglessons for him, and, given that
this is a community with a lotof pain and depression, it's
actually very admiring that theytake that extra effort to see
what is possible with thisdevice really on this sort of
(16:50):
technology, ai side of things,which is where you've been able
to sort of really develop thisdevice to something that's quite
groundbreaking, can you explainhow you've sort of designed the
technology to produce apatient's voice?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (17:01):
Absolutely, and the career doesn't go to me
specifically, it goes to theentire team who is really
hardworking and works on this.
So, with our devices, as Ferrymentioned, the plan has been to
release multiple devices overthe time and then not really
wait for this ultimatetechnology.
That could take many, manyyears.
So we do have plans to have adevice that has this state of
(17:26):
artificial intelligence and thegoal is to really really develop
that original voice, the voicethat the patient had there, you
know, prior to the surgery, geta recording of that, resemble
that and really recreate that.
And that's a device that wecall Bionic Voice, as you know,
and it's something that we'replanning to release in the
future.
In the meantime, with ourdevices, with AvaVoice and
(17:48):
MiraVoice, what we have done iswe designed customizable vocal
folds in the device and thoseprovide a high level degree of
customization.
So for right now, the patientscould try you know three, four,
you know we're trying to makethat six voice profiles and then
choose one that connects withthem closely.
(18:09):
There is a very significantgroup of this population that
are female patients and thenthese patients have been stuck
with a male sounding voice, withelectrolarynx or with the other
conventional treatment and withour devices and we're very
excited that we're working onthat so we now have vocal folds
(18:29):
that create that feminine voicefor these patients so that's a
different tone, a differentright, different octave higher
lower exactly, exactly, yeah,and and, and you know we're
finalizing our rnd with that andthen you know, with those
patients, you know it has it's a.
Our voices are a very, a veryhuge part of our identity, and
(18:51):
then being able to recreate thatand make sure that the voice
that is generated is matchingthe identity of the patients,
the female patients, it's a verybig, big quality of life
improvement.
So with that we have approachedit very closely and what about
things like different languages?
Caroline Duell (19:07):
Is it adaptable for different types of languages
?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (19:11):
That's a great question.
So we primarily have tested thedevice with English and Spanish
speakers, but we are workingwith other patients.
We have had patients who arespeaking Mandarin and there are
some differences in terms of howthe device is being used.
So, for example, some of thepatients need to adjust the tube
a little bit differently tofind the articulators that
(19:34):
really create that speech, butprimarily language independent.
So in most cases we are able torecreate that voice, but then,
with some different training,patients are able to speak the
language that they have.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (19:50):
As Musa said , yes, the device is language
independent.
It can actually generate, alsogenerate Chinese language, so we
can, for the first time,provide micro.
As you know, chinese is a tonallanguage that you need to
change intonation inside theboard and this device has the
capacity of doing that as well.
If that's okay, I wanted to add, like a comparison of the
(20:14):
quality of our voices this waswhat it was like, and I picked
it up pretty quickly.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (20:21):
Nothing will make you feel as out there as
you need an ability to helpsomebody else when they really
need it.
Caroline Duell (20:30):
It's so different.
It really is, and it's great tohear that difference and you
really feel like you can hearthe person behind the voice.
This is a really interestingsort of partnership that you
have as siblings Moosa you're inthe US and Farzana out here in
Australia, which is why you'vegot sort of a US-Australian base
, and that's really also helpedto shape your clinical trial
(20:54):
program.
Do you want to tell us aboutwhat that's involved and working
with hospitals, clinicians,speech pathologists?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (21:05):
so one of the things that differentiates
Laronix against many medicalcompanies is actually, we have a
very active arm in engagingwith the market, which is kudos
to Musa and his sort ofstrategic thinking about
connecting innovation to theuser.
Pass it on to him.
He normally interrupts us inthe middle of development.
(21:27):
This is good enough, let's go.
So okay, back to you, musa.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (21:32):
So when we started the Laronix project, one
of the things that we learnedquickly was that, in addition to
us being a technical team,there's also a group of very
dedicated clinicians who reallywant to see a change in this
domain, who know about thelimitations of what's available
and they want to see theirpatients, you know, being
(21:53):
successful and then be able tothrive and speak to the devices.
So what we did was we invited alot of these clinicians to
engage with us.
We started with some of theclinics and then gradually
developed that network.
We started with five clinicsand then now the network that we
have is around 30 very activeengagements that we have with
(22:15):
these hospitals with around 70clinicians.
These are speech languagepathologists and then
ex-surgeons and also nurses.
So with that we were able toget a lot of feedback about what
these clinicians want, and thenyou know what the patients are
saying about the devices.
But every time, as Fahrimentioned, understand where the
(22:37):
product should be to satisfyclinicians and patients, but
also if they think you know thatfeedback about the product,
about things that need toimprove or things that need to
change, we could quickly have acall with our team and then
convey the message from theclinicians to them and then we
could right away fix the productand then bring it back to them.
So because there is, theElectroLines was the technology
(23:01):
from 40 years ago.
That never changed.
When clinicians these dedicatedclinicians see that we are
changing our product every dayand every month and every you
know a couple of weeks, they getvery excited and they really
believe in our mission.
They understand that we arehere to make a difference and
we're not going to give up.
We just keep innovating till wereally get that, you know
(23:22):
product market fits right andwe're very on track to do that.
Caroline Duell (23:26):
And how critical has that feedback from the,
particularly that medicalecosystem being in the success
of, you know, actually gettingthe product to market.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (23:36):
Very, very critical.
One of the things that welearned early on was that we
really focus on the product andthen how the product should
perform, but at the same time,we learned that the product
should really fit the clinicalsetting that these products are
going to be used in terms of thepatient experience, what they
(23:58):
need when they come in or whathappens when they take the
devices home.
So we change a lot of processesaround that to make sure that,
you know, clinicians are happywith the processes that we have,
and we also had some of theclinicians join the team.
We have some of our reps whohave very in-depth clinical
expertise and then now they tellus everything that we need to
(24:20):
know, but then it's a little bitfaster and then we understand
the process a little bit better.
So the feedback has beencritical.
A lot of the clinicians that weare working with they actually
joined our clinical advisoryboard because they saw that we
are making progress and we are,you know, getting closer and
closer and closer to the goal,and now we have this like very
(24:43):
close loop of the feedback thatis coming in every day about
everything that we need tochange.
Some of the clinicians have mynumber too, so I always get
messages about everything thatthey like and they don't like
about the product.
But you know I love it and youknow we always welcome that and
you know it's a very good, youknow dynamic.
Caroline Duell (25:02):
So good news for people with voice loss is that
your product is available in theUS as well as Australia.
Late last year you got TGAclearance, so this is amazing.
Tell us about.
You know what that part of thejourney has been like.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (25:19):
So we have so far.
I always say what is yournumber?
Our number is 147 people, dailyusers of evolve, uh, and if we
might say, we pride our, wepride ourselves into changing
147 lives so far.
Um, the, the mission is to getthese to 300 000 uh in seven
(25:43):
years.
So that's what we are fightingfor.
Yeah, and, as you said, theproduct is commercially
available in Australia and theUS now for permanent voice loss
people, which is actually, toour understanding, the most
critical group of people.
Sadly, before us, they had ahigh suicide rate as well.
(26:04):
So we're very humbled,delighted and passionate about
helping them.
And with our second product,mira, we are providing early
access to that too.
So for people who we haveteenagers, for example, who are
trying it, for people who haveother types of voice loss, we
can also have considerationsaround enrolling them for the
(26:27):
MIRA trial program.
Caroline Duell (26:30):
And so you've set up a manufacturing site in
Queensland.
Is that correct?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (26:36):
Yeah, we have an ISOC certified
manufacturing plant with acapacity of 1,000 units, 1,000
patients per year.
It has been ISO audited twice,two subsequent years and last
year we had zeronon-conformities.
Yeah, it has.
We maintain a high quality ofthe product to ensure patients
(26:57):
and clinician satisfaction.
Very proud to be an Australianmanufacturing site and we have
expansion plans for up to 3000patients per year with a similar
sort of setup and after that wewill expand to mass
manufacturing.
Caroline Duell (27:16):
That's really exciting.
Australian made, that'swonderful.
Is there a bit of word of moutharound this device for the
speech pathology community andand the the oncology area as
well?
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (27:29):
yes, very, very much so.
So, um, sometimes we see a newwave of clinicians and patients
approaching us and when thathappens, we understand there was
a word of mouth, like you know,clinicians speaking to each
other and telling each otherabout engaging with us.
So we have had a veryconsistent track record of being
(27:51):
available for clinicians andproviding product trials and
that consistency have.
You know, we created a goodreputation and good trust among
clinicians in the company and wesee some you know screenshots
of them that clinicians sharethat, like you know, them
posting on their Facebook groupsabout their experiences, you
know, and then the otherclinicians getting encouraged to
(28:13):
, you know, engage with us anddo that, yeah, how long does it
take a new patient to learn howto use the technology?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (28:22):
Depending on the patient, sometimes two
hours, sometimes up to eighthours of speech pathology
sessions In the US, because wehave a smaller number of sort of
Medicare paid sessions, peopleare more agile to learn.
Our Australian sort of friendstake their time.
They essentially can speak fromday one.
(28:44):
They can speak words.
It's a matter of learning tospeak with the tube in their
mouth and learning to managetheir respiration so that they
have enough airflow for a sortof full conversation.
But yeah, it's relatively again, because it's very close to the
body works anyway.
So a lot of our training isabout taking the patient out of
(29:06):
too much focus on it.
We say this is what you need.
Caroline Duell (29:09):
You used to do, so just get back to that mode,
yeah do you feel as if it's likethe next cochlear?
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (29:16):
oh, we admire cochlear and, yeah, we,
we would love to follow thelegacy of Cochlear.
So, essentially, at the moment,whatever the Cochlear is and I
just want to sort of theCochlear has helped 700,000
people with their technology,and that's an Australian dream.
Like I said, we are projecting300,000 in seven years.
(29:39):
So that's the plan.
That's the plan and we wouldlove to actually step in there.
But our technology isnon-invasive, which essentially
grows much faster, and yet wehave just started.
So, as we sort of showed youlike, at the moment we have
generic male and female voices.
Sometimes we get completelynatural, depending on the
(30:02):
patient use of the device.
But we want to do a lot more.
We want to bring soprano alto,like a wide range of voices,
similar to wide range, range ofeyeglasses, because in the end
of the day the vocal fold has tomatch the person and that gives
them a wider range of speech,wider range of singing.
(30:23):
But our mission has beenenabling anyone who doesn't have
a voice to to sort of get backto to life.
And we started with the withthe focus on delivering
something early because thecondition was dire.
So one thing that I normallyrealize is that the way healthy
people think about voice loss isvery different than the way
(30:43):
that a person actually without avoice thinks about it.
Healthy people want a sort ofan AI enabled hands-free headset
version mode of the device, andthat's something that we
generally like organically gettowards, but for voice loss
people it's a necessity.
It's something that needed tobe there as early as possible.
(31:07):
So we strategised aroundaddressing this dire need as
early as possible and then wecontinue our R&D to develop the
next version.
Caroline Duell (31:17):
Yeah, which is fantastic.
So you know, people don't haveto wait another 10 years.
They've got something to get onliving with and you're just
refining it through that patientexperience and with new
technology and it's reallyexciting and that's a very
ambitious target.
But also, because it'snon-invasive, you don't have to
have it implanted.
(31:38):
That's reducing the cost, likeit's a much more cost-e
efficient medical device, whichis very appealing.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (31:46):
That's a great point.
So we actually did a recentanalysis on the cost that could
be reduced by our device beingadopted in hospitals in
Australia and US being adoptedin hospitals in Australia and US
and the analysis showed that,you know, with the devices like
AvaVoice, the price could bebrought down by up to 87%, which
(32:09):
is quite significant.
And we're talking also aboutthe huge burden in terms of
amount of work for cliniciansbut also for patients to, you
know, maintain some of thesolutions and you know, maintain
some of the solutions and youknow, overall, like a better
experience with you know, thisjourney and also that better
outcome on the other side.
Caroline Duell (32:29):
Well, what a fantastic place to be sitting in
the start of the next phase ofthe company.
Do you have any tips that you'dlike to share with anyone who's
kind of you know in the flow ofgetting their medical device
prototype ready for clinicaltrials or taking into clinical
trials?
I think your journey is quiteunique and you've obviously been
very persistent in believingthat you could come up with a
(32:52):
better solution.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (32:54):
Well, every journey is different, obviously,
but my biggest learning throughthis experience, thanks to Musa
, is get to market as quickly aspossible, get to use it as
quickly as possible.
There is no point beingidealistic about your product.
Everyone wants to be idealistic, always right, and the better
is the enemy of good, you know.
So if we restarted this journey, we would have released our
(33:18):
beta version much quicker.
Journey, we would have releasedour beta version much quicker.
And the Silicon Valley sort ofmantra is that if you release
your MVP by the time that youare not embarrassed by it, you
have released it late.
Yeah, so it has to be as quickas possible.
Get to the user and startcapturing user feedback.
Establish product market fit,and then again we can be
(33:39):
perfectionist about productmarket fit, and then again we
can be perfectionist aboutproduct market fit.
But again, if there is apossibility of early release and
then get a better market share,build a user case, that's the
best opportunity to go for.
We went for a sort of while toraise funding for it and our
messaging was, like you know,amazing take, do you want to
(34:01):
invest or not?
And and then we went to anaccelerator program in New York
and the first thing they said,which was a huge mental shift
for us, was stop talking toinvestors and start talking to
your users.
It was, it was sort of turningpoint for us and that was the
point that we actually shiftedour direction, went to hospitals
and and then investments came.
(34:21):
Because when you are havingactually that active dialogue,
then things fall in place.
I sometimes regret to see sosome of our folks in in
australian may take take a lotof time sort of perfecting a
product on the bench while theuse case is not yet there.
So the sooner they can get itto I I mean pending regulatories
(34:44):
, of course, because that's abig hurdle but the sooner they
can get it to user change thelife of the company.
Dr Mousa Ahmadi (34:52):
Definitely echoing everything that Larry
said.
On top of that, you know,medical device innovation domain
is filled with experts whoreally have gone through similar
experiences, have done similarproducts if not exactly the same
product but then, for example,work in the same domain, work
(35:14):
with the same clinicians, withthe same hospitals, and I highly
recommend seeking input fromthese experts who, a lot of them
, provide this expertise forfree because they really care
about patient health and, youknow, improving healthcare.
One of the things that we do inthe beginning, you know, was
(35:34):
that we try to, you know, figureeverything out from scratch
ourselves by really sit down andthinking and, you know, putting
a full, you know roadmaptogether.
But then we realized that bytalking to someone who has done
this and then has gone throughthis, we could save significant
amounts of time and really, youknow, connect with the patients
and the clinicians and then, youknow, work on the product.
(35:55):
So I recommend seeking adviceand then not being ashamed for
it and understand that there arepeople who are really, really
willing to provide that and bepart of the journey of the, you
know ventures who are innovatingin this domain.
Caroline Duell (36:11):
When did you realize that pretty much this
was your journey to take withdeveloping this product?
Like you couldn't find anyoneinterested in helping
commercialise it, you justdecided we've got to go for it.
Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi (36:24):
Oh yeah, that's a very good question.
So yeah, when this was inventedin uni in Australia Western
Sydney University at the timeand at the time Musa was a PhD
student in UX as well, so wewere going different, like
separate lives, but we talked alot about it and we approached a
lot of big names Google was oneparticularly, because I spent
(36:48):
like about six months talking toGoogle and in the end they said
, look, big companies do notdevelop technologies from
scratch because unless it getsto a certain point, so you go
develop it and then come andtalk to us.
So over time and the universitywas giving me the option of
going to the teaching life, sowe realized that if that would
(37:13):
be the case, then no oneactually conversed with this
technology and we get quitegenuinely, we got waves and
waves of people emailing andtrying to have it.
That was the time that the thestory of the invention was
getting out, because westernsydney university had put a
story called this discovery.
That has changed one, of course, research worldwide, um, so it
(37:33):
became sort of a choice, whetheris it us or not, and then we
decided, and then Musa coinedthe word Laronix, and then we
decided that if there's onething that we want to do in a
lifetime.
That's going to be it, and westepped to this.
We step into this journey verypositively and and then we we've
(37:58):
solved the problems thathappened over the journey.
But yeah, that was the intentionand so it became a mandate.
And the more we talked tovoiceless people, the more we
saw the case of depression, themore personal this problem
became for us, because,literally, they don't have any
voice to defend themselves.
That's the reality of it voiceto defend themselves.
(38:22):
That that's the reality of it,alongside all the learnings of
converting a good technology toan excellent business case,
which you should learn asco-founders.
But what happened in the backof our mind and inside our heart
is any patient that gets theirvoice back.
It's sort of like a huge fuelto this engine for us and we get
inspired to continue that well.
Caroline Duell (38:41):
I can see and hear the passion that is driving
um loronics, andcongratulations to your teams in
the us and in australia.
It's a very exciting stage forthe company and we really wish
you all the best for yourcontinued product development
and the work that you're doingto help people with voice loss,
(39:01):
which will hopefully take thismedical device around the world.
That was Leronix co-founders,dr Farzana Ahmadi and Dr Musa
Ahmadi, a dynamic sister andbrother duo, talking about how
they have developed the world'sfirst smart wearable electronic
voice box, giving people whohave lost their larynx their
(39:22):
natural sounding voice back.
You've been listening to theMTP Connect podcast.
This podcast is produced on thelands of the Wurundjeri people
here in Narm, melbourne.
Thanks for listening to theshow.
If you love what you heard,share our podcast and follow us
for more Until next time.
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