diff --git a/cython/CMakeLists.txt b/cython/CMakeLists.txt
index ca5c0ecfb..400e96e13 100644
--- a/cython/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/cython/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -28,6 +28,9 @@ if (GTSAM_INSTALL_CYTHON_TOOLBOX)
                                     )
   endif()
 
+  file(READ "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/cython/requirements.txt" CYTHON_INSTALL_REQUIREMENTS)
+  file(READ "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/README.md" README_CONTENTS)
+
   # Install the custom-generated __init__.py
   # This is to make the build/cython/gtsam folder a python package, so gtsam can be found while wrapping gtsam_unstable
   configure_file(${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/cython/gtsam/__init__.py ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/cython/gtsam/__init__.py COPYONLY)
diff --git a/cython/setup.py.in b/cython/setup.py.in
index 3161c36e7..0e22dbf11 100644
--- a/cython/setup.py.in
+++ b/cython/setup.py.in
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ setup(
     version='${GTSAM_VERSION_STRING}',  # https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0440/
     license='Simplified BSD license',
     keywords='slam sam',
-    long_description=open('${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/README.md', 'r').read(),
+    long_description='''${README_CONTENTS}''',
     # https://pypi.org/pypi?%3Aaction=list_classifiers
     classifiers=[
         'Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable',
@@ -30,5 +30,7 @@ setup(
         [f for f in os.listdir(package.replace('.', os.path.sep)) if os.path.splitext(f)[1] in ('.so', '.dll')]
         for package in packages
     },
-    install_requires=open('${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/cython/requirements.txt', 'r').read().splitlines()
+    install_requires=[line.strip() for line in '''
+${CYTHON_INSTALL_REQUIREMENTS}
+'''.splitlines() if len(line) > 0 and not line.strip().startswith('#')]
 )