Last month, we wrote that Bernie Sanders, the independent Senator from Vermont, proposed a bill that would eliminate market exclusivity for new drugs, but would give inventors or developers cash rewards from a new “Medical Innovation Prize Fund.” A key requirement is that the newly invented products would have to improve health outcomes. Here are the details or read what one of those involved has to say.

Now, presidential hopeful John Edwards is also touting the idea. In an appearance in New Hampshire he talked it up as part of his campaign platform to overhaul health care.

“It would also create a different dynamic for drug companies and particularly for breakthrough drugs in big areas like Alzheimer’s, cancer, etc.,” Edwards told a group of medical professionals at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, according to Reuters. “We’d offer a cash prize for the research and development of these drugs, but they don’t get a patent. So we eliminate the monopoly…The idea is you’ve got to give the financial incentive for the companies to do it but on the flip side you get the products to the market quicker, available quickly and at a much lower cost.”

The idea was recently debated at a World Health Organization, although it remains unclear whether the concept can gain any traction here or anywhere else. A temperature reading in the form of a Pharmalot poll shot it down. Edwards recently called for a two-year direct-to-consumer advertising ban on new drugs, although he flubbed a little by adding marketing and administrative costs together when contrasting industry outlays for R&D.

Hat tip to the WSJ Health Blog