Problem

Laryngectomy people lose their larynx and their voice-box due to throat cancer. Having lost their vocal folds, they permanently lose their “voice”. Prior to Laronix, laryngectomy people had two options for restoring some voice: (1) Indwelling voice prosthesis: this option is the standard of care for laryngectomy people to regain their voice. It requires surgeries and it is highly invasive. People who use these voice prostheses experience frequent infections and swallowing bio-hazards and are limited to a hoarse and whispery voice without a male/female distinction. (2) Electrolarynx: this option is an electronic device that only generates an inferior robotic-sounding voice. In the absence of any alternative to generate a better voice for these patients, laryngectomy people around the world live a lifetime of isolation and communication disability. Sadly, this segment records the second-highest suicide rate among all cancer survivors.

Company History

Laronix was born in 2019 as a spin-out of a decade of globally pioneering international research collaboration in natural voice synthesis using AI and more than AU$1.3 million in grants. Laronix’s Bionic Voice was the winner of the AU$50,000 Australia's Bionics Challenge Award in 2021.

Product / Services

Laronix has two products in the pipeline: (a) Our first product, Bionic Voice, is the world's first, FDA-cleared and TGA-approved smart wearable artificial voice-box generating a natural-sounding voice for larynx amputees. (b) Our second product is the Voice App, a voice-cloning App enabling millions of voice-impaired people to speak with a natural-sounding voice over the phone or any communication platform in real-time.

First Product: Bionic Voice

Laronix has developed Bionic Voice, a wearable (non-invasive) electronic voice-box, as the new standard of care for generating voice for larynx amputees. Bionic Voice acts as a headset placed outside patients’ body and uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to mimic the patients’ voice, thus it substitutes their missing "voice source". Our Beta version of this product has already generated an exceptionally high-quality voice in our trials. The Beta product has already demonstrated strong advantages over conventional voice prostheses. Bionic Voice has three unique combined advantages that do not exist in its competing solutions: (1) It is the world’s first artificial larynx with ultra-realistic natural voice quality and male/female distinction. (2) It relies on AI and can be trained to reach a quality of voice that resembles the patient’s own. (3) Laronix’s Bionic Voice is inherently safe and completely non-invasive, eliminating all of the biohazards of the conventional voice prostheses.

Second Product: Laronix’s Voice App

Laronix’s second product is a real-time mobile application based on the voice cloning engine, which allows voice-impaired people (e.g., larynx amputees, Parkinson’s Disease patients) and people with voice deficiencies to speak with a natural-sounding voice over the phone or any communication platform (e.g., Zoom).