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C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 5 4 1 "For me, innovation isn't about invention for its own sake. It's about fixing what's broken — and making the system better for everyone." — Jay Walker Walker said innovating in the medical sphere carries "multiple years of capital risk, capricious and arbitrary blockages on whether you can bring something to market." He believes the tenets of medicine inherently contradict change. Walker recalled that he was warned numerous times not to innovate in the medical space, as it would be "a money pit of loss." Yet, he felt compelled to tackle these challenges. Walker co-founded ApiJect in 2018 with British inventor Marc Koska, known for developing the K1 auto-disable syringe — a device that locks or breaks aer one use to prevent disease transmission through needle reuse. at device is estimated to have saved 10 million lives. Walker credits Koska with foundational contributions to the blow-fill-seal technology behind ApiJect, which molds, fills and seals sterile plastic containers in a single continuous operation. e process, adapted from German technology, takes about six seconds and relies on a single raw material: medical-grade plastic resin. "(Koska) is the person who really deserves all the credit for understanding how this technology, which had been used for one thing, could be used for other things," Walker said. "at's almost always the case with technology — technologies developed for one thing inevitably have uses in other areas, just like scientific discoveries and research in one area always have applicability in others." Today, nearly every liquid injectable is stored in glass vials — a paradigm Walker deems obsolete because it's "environmentally dirty" and "logistically outdated." Producing a single glass vial requires three separate factories, oen in different countries, more than a dozen raw materials, and two to six weeks to complete, he said. ApiJect claims its system emits less than half the carbon emissions of glass vial production. On Sept. 25, the company submitted its first new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an existing ulcer medication packaged in its proprietary single- dose, prefilled plastic syringe — the first injectable drug to use its product. e company selected the drug, known generically as glycopyrrolate, as a "proof of concept" to show that its delivery system works. e 5,000-page application represents years of development work and millions of dollars in investment. "It has taken five years to get to this stage," Walker said. "It's not for the faint of heart." ApiJect has no commercial revenue yet, as it cannot sell pharmaceutical products in the U.S. without FDA approval. Reshoring drug manufacturing Walker argues ApiJect's technology is key to bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to American soil — a goal that aligns with recent federal efforts to reduce reliance on overseas drug production. Generic drugs represent 90% of all medications Americans use, yet up to 80% of those generics come from China and India, according to ApiJect. "We don't make generic drugs here anymore. We've shut the factories down. ey're gone," Walker said. "It's a very dangerous situation for the United States." He believes ApiJect's technology can help make domestic production viable again by dramatically lowering packaging costs — one of the major expenses in producing injectable drugs. "Our technology makes it possible for the U.S. to reshore U.S.-made generic drugs, because though there'll be higher cost to make the drug, there'll be lower cost to make the packaging," Walker explained. ApiJect plans both to manufacture blow-fill-seal packaging using its technology and to license the system to partners. In May, the company announced a partnership with Amneal Pharmaceuticals to install dedicated manufacturing lines at the company's Brookhaven, New York, facility. e plan is to produce 250 to 300 million individual prefilled syringes per year, with room to scale to over 400 million. Amneal, which operates facilities in both India and the United States, "needs innovation and lower costs" to make U.S. production competitive, Walker said. Walker's ability to attract commercial partners like Amneal stems in part from years of federal backing that helped fuel the technology's development during the pandemic. ApiJect was a contractor for Operation Warp Speed, the federal COVID-19 vaccine program. Its prefilled syringe technology was designated as a backup manufacturing and distribution option for COVID-19 vaccines, to ensure that additional U.S.-based capacity was available if primary supply chains faced shortages or delays. While the technology wasn't ultimately needed for COVID-19 vaccines, the arrangement gave the U.S. the right to use ApiJect's platform for national emergencies. e company has raised more than $200 million in com- bined public and private funding and operates what Walker jokes is "the world's smallest multinational," with about 40 employees spread across offices in Connecticut, North Carolina, Florida, the United Kingdom, Geneva and Australia. Still, Walker remains committed to Connecticut, citing the quality of its talent base and proximity to urban centers. "Southwestern Connecticut really has the best of both worlds," he said. "We get all the benefits of this great, mature metropolis, but we actually get to see trees, and not be in the middle of crazy New York." Protecting intellectual property Walker describes himself as a "business system inventor" — someone who looks at entire systems to create, deliver and bring products or services to market. He notes that his name appears on each of the more than 700 patents he's amassed over his career. TIME magazine has twice named him one of the "50 most influential business leaders in the digital age." Yet, Walker's aggressive enforcement of intellectual property has drawn criticism. Some label him a "patent troll" — a term for entities that acquire patents primarily to extract licensing fees through litigation rather than to develop products. Between 2010 and 2011, Walker Digital filed numerous lawsuits against major tech companies including Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microso, eBay, Walmart, and Apple for allegedly infringing various patents. Walker vehemently rejects the "patent troll" characterization. In a 2016 PBS NewsHour interview, he defended his actions: "I've never bought a patent from anybody. I've invented everything I've ever done. … I've spent tens of millions of dollars. I've built giant companies with thousands of employees. If I'm not an inventor, who the hell is?" Ellenthal called the patent troll claim "self-serving rhetoric." "It ignores the vital role of intellectual property in the American economy," Ellenthal said. "It's just a garbage point of view, mostly from people who like to steal other people's intellectual property and not pay for it." Walker said the lawsuits reflect his passion for protecting intellectual property rights, which he views as essential to innovation. "Inventions are not solutions that people could use — inventions are conceptual frameworks that solve a problem," Walker said. "To bring that to market, you need capital. You need a team of people, you need all kinds of things. If you incent invention, if you allow inventions to be property, you get all the benefits of a property system around the inventions." Walker's innovations extend beyond health care and e-commerce. rough another company, Walker Digital Table Systems, he has developed technology that turns casino gaming floors into intelligent networks. e system uses RFID tags embedded in casino chips and antennas underneath gaming tables to automatically track bets, detect altered wagers, prevent counterfeiting and speed up play — while remaining invisible to players. What started with baccarat in Asian casinos has expanded to other table games in casinos worldwide, including at New York's Aqueduct casino. Learning from history While ApiJect's Stamford headquarters exudes modernist ambition, Walker's private library in Ridgefield — e Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination — captures his insatiable curiosity. e sprawling 3,600-square-foot space spans three stories, featuring rare books, historical artifacts and displays that celebrate human innovation across centuries. More than 50,000 volumes fill floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Glass walkways and platforms hover above the main floor, while spiral staircases curve through maze-like passages. e collection includes a 1957 backup Russian Sputnik, an original anastatic facsimile of the Declaration of Independence and a 17th-century atlas with the first maps showing the sun at the center of the universe. "I oen tell people it's a joy to share," Walker said of his library. "Most people tell me it's unforgettable." I