London ? A judge ruled Friday that Britain’s state-run health service must change the way it advises doctors on supplying some Alzheimer’s patients with drugs to treat the brain-destroying disease.

However, the judge upheld an argument by the government medicines monitor that the drugs are only cost-effective for patients in later stages of the illness – defeating an attempt to force authorities to prescribe the medicines to those with early-stage Alzheimer’s.

Pharmaceutical companies and Alzheimer’s advocates had asked the High Court to overturn a decision by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which declined to approve a group of drugs known as acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors for patients in early stages of the disease.