In an exclusive interview with APAC Entrepreneur, the distinguished entrepreneur shared her fascinating entrepreneurial journey.
YI-LI LEE, CHAIRPERSON AND CEO OF AMCAD BIOMED
Chairperson and CEO Yi-Li Lee leads AmCad BioMed in its dedication to becoming a leader in smart medical imaging. The company specializes in precision AI medical technology and is the world’s first ultrasound computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) medical device company to receive US FDA clearance, helping to make image interpretation more consistent and accurate. Leveraging world-leading patented technology and clinical expertise, AmCad BioMed has obtained multiple FDA and CE certifications and continues to introduce innovative solutions for unmet medical needs, assisting physicians in making precise, consistent diagnoses right at the patient’s bedside. CEO Lee has successfully translated the rigorous logic of finance into the language of life sciences, while also making corporate sustainability a goal, opening up a new paradigm in the medical technology industry.
For over a decade, she navigated the precision-driven corridors of global banking, advising industry giants like TSMC and Foxconn, mastering the art of numbers, negotiations, and nuance. But even in that world of calculated certainty, a quiet conviction began to take shape: true impact isn’t measured only in profit margins, but in the lives transformed by purposeful innovation.
In 2013, she made a decisive pivot, returning to the family-owned Maywufa Group, not as an heir, but as an architect of reinvention. She carried with her the discipline of finance, embedding it into the DNA of a company ready to evolve from tradition to transformation. Under her leadership, strategic foresight met scientific curiosity, giving rise to a culture where innovation was not an act of chance but a matter of design. As Yi-Li often reflects, “Innovation isn’t about chasing what’s next, it’s about reimagining what’s already within reach.” It’s this rare blend of precision and purpose that continues to define her journey, one that turns business acumen into a blueprint for meaningful change.
When Yi-Li joined Maywufa, she entered a legacy nearly five decades strong, an enterprise built on the twin pillars of stability and innovation. Her vision was not to upend that foundation but to evolve it: to forge a bridge between science and empathy, where innovation grows from genuine human need rather than technological novelty. Within AmCad BioMed Corporation, she envisioned healthcare not as an industry but as a promise —to return to the essence of care, addressing unmet needs and elevating lives through evidence-based solutions.
Yi-Li often says, “True innovation is not about being first; it’s about being meaningful.” Under her direction, this belief became the company’s quiet engine. She steered teams to pursue advances that endure, not just impress, to let stability serve as the heartbeat of progress. What resonated most deeply with her in Maywufa’s mission was the idea of creating value through expertise, for patients, for society, and for the individuals who dedicate their craft to care. Through that lens, innovation becomes more than invention; it becomes compassion in motion.
If Maywufa is the tree rooted in legacy, AmCad BioMed is its boldest branch, stretching toward the future with intent and precision. Under Yi-Li’s entrepreneurial leadership, the company has evolved beyond the boundaries of biotechnology; it embodies a philosophy where every innovation must make life tangibly better for someone, somewhere.
By integrating AI, biotechnology, and ICT, AmCad BioMed has reimagined ultrasound, not as a static diagnostic tool, but as an intelligent partner in care. Its flagship AmCAD-UT® empowers physicians to assess thyroid nodule malignancy with exceptional accuracy, while AmCAD-UO® transforms the detection of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), providing clear results in just ten minutes, without the need for overnight monitoring.
Both technologies have earned U.S. FDA clearance, European MDR, and Taiwan TFDA approvals, and are now trusted by more than 300 physicians across 200 hospitals worldwide. As Yi-Li often reflects, “Innovation must have a soul; otherwise, it’s just machinery.” In her world, technology isn’t built to impress; it’s designed to care, to endure, and to remind us that even in science, empathy remains the most powerful algorithm of all.
Every entrepreneur meets a crossroad where conviction is tested, not by failure, but by the demand to evolve faster than comfort allows. For Yi-Li, that moment came early in AmCad BioMed’s journey with AmCAD-UT®, an ingenious software designed to help physicians assess thyroid nodules. Yet innovation rarely lands seamlessly. At first, the software struggled to integrate smoothly with hospitals’ existing ultrasound systems and workflows, creating friction in onboarding and slowing channel growth.
Instead of retreating, Yi-Li turned the challenge into a classroom. She and her team chose to learn by doing, adjusting course in real time. They shifted toward a software-hardware integration model, partnering with ultrasound manufacturers and imaging platform providers to simplify workflows and embed user feedback directly into design. The result was transformative, commercialization accelerated, physician adoption grew, and the learning curve shortened.
Her resilience stems from strategic agility and a distinctly female lens on leadership. In a field long dominated by men, Yi-Li sees her strengths, multitasking and empathy, as catalysts for innovation. Healthcare, she notes, thrives on cross-disciplinary collaboration; aligning R&D, regulatory, clinical, and marketing teams demands systems thinking and emotional intelligence. “As leaders, we must listen between the lines; innovation often hides in what isn’t said,” she states.
That empathy defines AmCad’s culture. It shapes products that fit naturally into hospital workflows, allowing clinicians, already under immense pressure, to focus on what truly matters: patient care. In Yi-Li’s world, innovation is not only about invention; it’s about understanding the rhythm of real lives and designing technology that moves in sync with it.
For Yi-Li, the next decade at AmCad BioMed represents a new frontier, one where technology listens as much as it leads. The company will continue to champion Pioneering Ultrasound AI, refining its role as both a scientific and societal catalyst. Through AmCAD-UT®, AmCad is integrating handheld point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) with telemedicine, pushing precision medicine beyond hospital walls and into the hands of everyday practitioners.
Equally transformative is AmCAD-UO®, designed to confront obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a condition emblematic of modern life, too often undiagnosed because of complex testing pathways. With its fast, accurate, and convenient design, AmCad aims to identify potential cases earlier, enable timely intervention, and reduce cardiovascular comorbidity risks at the root. Beyond detection, the company’s next step lies in precision therapy, using AmCAD-UO® to assess treatment suitability and support continuous post-therapy monitoring.
In collaboration with Stanford University Sleep Medicine and the University of the Pacific (UOP) School of Dentistry, AmCad is enhancing the success rate of oral appliance therapy, backed by positive outcomes within the NIH system, a milestone that will accelerate regulatory and reimbursement frameworks across global markets.
Looking ahead, Yi-Li’s message to aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly women in healthcare, is steeped in hard-earned wisdom. “If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be resilience,” she reflects. Entering healthcare, she explains, demands a deep respect for safety, regulation, and research integrity. Progress is slow, often far slower than ambition desires, and the path is strewn with uncertainty. Yet, those who remain patient, committed, and curious, who keep learning and refining, eventually find that the results are not just successful, but profoundly meaningful. As she often reminds her team, “Resilience isn’t about endurance; it’s about evolution.” For Yi-Li, the journey of innovation is not a race toward invention; it is a steady, thoughtful climb toward improving human lives, one discovery, one patient, one purpose at a time.