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C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 5 3 9 Priceline founder, serial entrepreneur Walker's latest venture aims to transform U.S. drug manufacturing Patent King >> By Andrew Larson From his offices in a sleek, modernist building that looks more like a spacecra than a corporate headquarters, Jay S. Walker imagines a world without the glass vials used to package injectable drugs. Walker, who holds more than 750 patents, believes his latest company, ApiJect Systems, could replace glass medicine vials with prefilled plastic single-dose injection devices. e company's futuristic Stamford building reflects his forward-looking vision, and he predicts that within two decades, these plastic alternatives will fully supplant glass vials. "Last time I checked, there aren't many glass bottles in the supermarket, unless you're buying something very expensive," the 70-year-old serial entrepreneur said during a recent interview at ApiJect's headquarters. "Glass is expensive, environmentally unfriendly, heavy and it breaks." Walker aims for his latest venture to be as transformative as Priceline.com, the travel booking site that made him a billionaire during the dot-com boom. But this time, instead of disrupting how people buy airline tickets, he's targeting a 100-year-old system of packaging medicine. "For me, innovation isn't about invention for its own sake," he said. "It's about fixing what's broken — and making the system better for everyone." The Priceline boom In 1994, Walker founded Walker Digital, a privately held R&D lab designed to invent new business systems. It was here that he developed the concept that would make him famous: Priceline.com. "I built a laboratory that was designed to look for systemic problems in business," Walker explained. "It was a team of people who spent their days looking at system problems, and those are not that hard to find. Look for things that are operating inefficiently or below what they could be, and almost always, you'll find a system problem." e airline industry presented an obvious inefficiency: planes flew with empty seats while potential customers stayed home because they couldn't afford full-price tickets. "e airline was competing with the couch for those people. e competitor was — to not go," Walker said. Walker launched Priceline in April 1998 with $20 million from selling a third of his stake in an earlier company he started — NewSub Services — Jay S. Walker Co-Founder, Executive Chairman & CEO ApiJect Systems Education: Bachelor's degree in industrial and labor relations, Cornell University Age: 70 Continued on next page WALKER PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER