On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate Subcommittee will hold a hearing on a bill from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that would use an Open Innovation prize model to push forward the development of more effective and affordable drugs to treat HIV/AIDS.

The bill S. 1138 would "eliminate legal barriers to generic competition for HIV/AIDS drugs and reward innovation directly, through a $3 billion a year prize fund," according to a statement from the Senator's office.

In addition to serving as an incentive for new innovation, Sanders' office also says the bill would also encouraging opening up research into the production of the costly drugs, by requiring that "at least 5 percent of the prize money go to any individual, business or nonprofit organization that openly shared information, data, materials or technology that contributed in a positive way to the development of new drugs."

Sanders has lined up some heavy hitters to testify at tomorrow's hearing, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig and Harvard health research director Suerie Moon.

Crowdsourcing.org has been in touch with Senator Sanders' office and we hope to get the Senator on the phone for a few words soon. When we do, we'll share the interview with you here. Otherwise the hearing starts at 10 am Washington, D.C. time, and I'm told live streams might be available via C-SPAN or the full committee website. 

I'll be following this story and will keep you updated as the debate and dialogue on the bill unfold. 

 - Eric Mack is a contributing editor for Crowdsourcing.org. He also currently contributes to CNET. In the past, his work has been featured by NPR, Wired, the New York Times and other outlets. You can contact him at eric.mack@crowdsourcing.org. Find him on Twitter and Google+. Also be sure to follow Crowdsourcing.org on Twitter.