setup.py not found using pip install

Trying to install PyVCF under a python (3) virtual environment gave me the following error:

(venv)johnlees@hpc:~$ pip install pyvcf
 Downloading/unpacking pyvcf
 Downloading PyVCF-0.6.8.linux-x86_64.tar.gz (1.1MB): 1.1MB downloaded
 Saved /tmp/downloadcache/PyVCF-0.6.8.linux-x86_64.tar.gz
 Running setup.py egg_info for package pyvcf
 Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "", line 16, in 
 FileNotFoundError: \[Errno 2\] No such file or directory: '~/venv/build/pyvcf/setup.py'
 Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
 Traceback (most recent call last):

File "", line 16, in

FileNotFoundError: \[Errno 2\] No such file or directory: '~/venv/build/pyvcf/setup.py'

The solution was to upgrade setuptools:

pip install --upgrade setuptools

I went from 0.6.34 to 36.8.0 (apparently!)