Bands buy cancer drug for impresario

The Happy Mondays and other acts championed by the Manchester music impresario Anthony Wilson are paying for his cancer treatment after the NHS turned down his request for a £3,500-a-month drug.

Mr Wilson, 56, the co-founder of Factory Records and boss of the Hacienda nightclub in the Eighties and Nineties, was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year.

Doctors at Manchester's Christie Hospital recommended Sudent, a drug that, in trials, has doubled the life expectancy of some patients, after the removal of a kidney and chemotherapy failed to halt his cancer.

But Manchester NHS Primary Care Trust refused to pay for it, saying there was insufficient "demonstrable evidence to support the use of this drug in treating kidney cancer".

Unable to afford the drug, Mr Wilson is now reliant on a fund set up by a friend and former manager of the Happy Mondays Nathan McGough, and Elliot Rashman, the group's present manager.

"I'm the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money," said Mr Wilson. "I'm lucky I have this fund and my friends have been very generous, but some people needing these drugs are cashing in life savings, some are selling their homes."