Queensland startup uses AI to give cancer patients their voices back

A Queensland startup has used its pioneering artificial intelligence technology to successfully replicate the natural voice of patients who have lost the ability to speak due to disease or cancer.

The startup, Laronix, has been working since 2020 to develop ways to help people speak again after they’ve had their larynx removed.

The company previously received approval from the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) and the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) for its first product, AVA Voice, which is a wearable electronic voice prosthesis that monitors the wearer’s respiration signals when they are trying to talk and then produces a voice using AI.

In its most recent breakthrough, however, Laronix has developed a way to recreate a patient’s own natural voice using its technology, instead of a human-sounding voice that isn’t their own.

It does this by using as little as 10 seconds of a recording of the patient’s voice, including from home recordings or even social media.

The technology, which is the basis of its MIRA-AI product, is not limited to any particular language, which means it can produce voices across all languages, accents and vocal styles.

Laronix has reportedly developed the technology in collaboration with Google, after it was selected for the Google for Startups Program in 2025.

Founder Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi has said being able to give someone their own voice back is “like magic”.

“For years we tried to generate voices for people who had lost their voice,” she told news.com.au.

“We could give them a natural voice, but it wasn’t their voice.

“Now we can read 10 seconds of any voice-lost patient’s voice and recreate their own voice for them, the voice their families knew them for, the voice their loved ones recognised.

“This is the first time we can actually give them their own missing voice back.”

In one video shared by Larnoix, American patient Steve Navaroli says he may start to cry after listening to a recreation of his voice.

The clip shows Navaroli, who had a total laryngectomy last year after complications from throat cancer and now speaks using a tracheoesophageal prosthesis, speaking in his current voice and then listening back to the recreated version of his original voice before the surgery.

Ahmadi said the technology has the potential to help people living with throat cancer, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions, and may be further applied to other circumstances, such as ICU patients who are unable to speak after ventilation or others with speech disorders.

Laronix backed by medtech pioneers, government grants

Laronix is undertaking pre-release testing for its latest breakthrough with clinicians in Australia and major US hospitals.

The company plans to release the technology more broadly next year and has plans to make it accessible to more Australian patients, depending on fundraising.

Laronix secured the backing of high-profile investors and medtech innovators as part of a $2 million seed funding round in August 2023.

Dr Elaine Saunders and Dr Peter Blamey, co-founders of hearing aid company Blamey Saunders, backed the startup in the round, which was led by Scale Investors, as did Modibodi founder Kristy Chong.

The startup also previously received a number of federal government grants, including $551,100 via the federal government’s Accelerating Commercialisation Grant program in August 2021, and another $409,000 in December 2022 from the Commonwealth’s Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre‘s $30 million Commercialisation Fund.

In November 2025, Laronix received another $3.2 million in non-dilutive funding from the federal government’s Industry Growth Program.

SmartCompany has contacted Laronix for more information.

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