Losing a research job and founding a breakthrough bionics business

In the next profile for our Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers series, we hear from Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi, who turned her life’s work restoring a voice to those who’ve lost it into a promising bionics business. Brent Balinski spoke to Ahmadi, the founder and CEO of Laronix. 

Every now and then you hear a story about how getting fired was an unexpected plus for a person. The story of Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi, founder and CEO of Laronix, is a more powerful example than most.

Ahmadi studied voice cloning during a computer engineering PhD in Singapore, and never forgot a message she received at the time. 

“‘I’m a singer and my voice is my life and I’m going through a procedure [where] I’m going to lose my voice,” the email said.

‘“Can you guys do anything for me?’”  

Sadly, given the state of progress, her answer was maybe in 20 years. Ahmadi recalls finishing her PhD “heartbroken” at not being able to solve the problem. 

She moved to Australia in 2012, still pursuing artificial voice research. She later arrived at a research avenue cutting out the complexity, focussing on breath rather than having to untangle the components of signals from the brain, the vocal folds, and respiration.

It was inspired by the pneumatic or “Tokyo larynx” approach.

“All we needed to do… was just to model the vocal fold section. So with that the problem was solved,” says Ahmadi.

“The question is, can we simplify the larynx [and] not to worry about nerves anymore, and just use something that is driven by respiration. And the pneumatic larynx was very helpful with that.”

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While progress was being made, enquiries from patients who had lost voices “shadowed my work”, she recalls. 

Eventually, her pneumatic bionic voice research was at the stage where it might be the subject of a spinout business, so she mentioned it to her employer, Western Sydney University. They seemed supportive until a department superior invited her to a zoom call.

“And over a 40 second phone call I was essentially terminated from my job,” Ahmadi tells @AuManufacturing.

“And she said something that I want to put… on the record. She said ‘because you want to make a business out of our research we no longer need you.’”

Ahmadi adds that the decision wasn’t taken personally, and WSU actually proved helpful in transferring the IP into a new company.

After founding Laronix in 2020 with her brother Dr Mousa Ahmadi, the company has progressed Farzaneh’s idea into a product — released in Australia and the US last year — and recognition of its life-changing potential for larynx cancer patients and others is growing. It has earned endorsements from eminent clinical centres.

In Australia alone, an estimated 600 are diagnosed annually with laryngeal cancer. Survivors typically have their larynx (and their voice) removed. Solutions on offer are unnatural sounding at best, and according to Ahmadi no new technology had been released in about four decades.

Laronix’s factory at Brisbane has capacity to assemble the first product, Ava Voice, for about 1,000 patients a year, with arrangements with other manufacturers in Australia to make another 10,000 if needed. 

There is headroom to make 10,000 of an upcoming second product, Mira Voice, at Brisbane. Mira is designed to treat a wider range of voice loss types.

Ahmadi says that at this stage there are 147 patients using Ava.

With recognition of Laronix’s life-changing potential growing, and a growing list of awards for Ahmadi’s breakthrough, the company seems on the cusp of making a real impact in the world.

As for what makes a company innovative, Ahmadi offers that most of the time it’s about being the first to solve a problem.  

“Some innovative companies are deeply science-focussed, create very high-tech jobs, and in that sense they are like trees that have deeper roots,” she tells us.

“So it might take time for them to flourish… like Cochlear for example. And some companies sort of are quicker to respond in that innovative approach.”

In episode 109 of @AuManufacturing Conversations, Ahmadi tells us about commercialising her life’s work, how the company’s technology works, and more. The episode is available to stream below and download elsewhere.

Picture: credit AMGC/Laronix

Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers is an annual campaign by @AuManufacturing. The current version has been made possible through the generous support of Australia Wide Engineering Recruitment, TXM Lean Solutions, the Industry Capability Network, Bonfiglioli Australia, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre and the SmartCrete CRC. You can nominate here (there is no administration fee) until March 15. 

Episode guide

1:30 – What do artificial larynxes do and why are they needed?

2:45 – Career path, and an “obsession” with remedying voicelessness going back to university.

4:35 – The three components of a larynx, and why properly emulating what it does has been hard.

5:34 – The pneumatic artificial larynx and coming across an inspirational paper pointing to a new solution.

7:31 – The importance of resilience.

8:17 – The frustrations of academia and the reason Ahmadi left. “Over a 40-second phone call, I was essentially terminated.”

11:03 – Why losing a job at a university was a relief.

12:26 – An explanation of how Ava, the company’s first product, works.

13:58 – Larynx’s second product, Mira, and what it does that Ava doesn’t.

14:55 – Adapting based on user feedback and what this has involved.

16:10 – Current manufacturing capacity at Queensland, and plans to scale up.

16:57 – Clinical partners and how they’ve helped.

18:15 – How we can help medical technology innovators.

19:40 – It’s not just about funding. Sometimes advice is just as valuable to startups.

20:45 – The role of risk and reward in the company’s story.

22:10 – Some criteria around innovative companies. 

23:03 – There could be more support for companies nearing the commercial stage.