FARMINGTON – Pharmacists Robert Witt and Jim Witt IV work about 100 hours a week between them at their pharmacy. There’s at least one of them, many times both, on duty six days a week.

It’s one way they are able to keep drug prices low for their customers – who are also their friends – at Howard’s Rexall Drug in Farmington.

The brothers own the store. They were working Veterans Day when they learned their pharmacy was the top-rated drug store in a Maine survey of pharmacies’ drug prices.

Information submitted by the Witt brothers showed that it would cost a total of $627.64 to buy 15 drugs frequently used by people over 60 to treat a range of illnesses from a respiratory disorder to Alzheimer’s disease. Some stores would have charged more than $800 for the same basket of drugs, the survey found.

Last year, the pharmacy was in the upper half of the top 10 list.

“It makes me feel good; we have good prices,” Robert Witt said.

“We work hard to make it reasonably priced for people. Most people call us for prices and are surprised we have lower prices.”

Also in the Top 10 were Rumford Drug Store in Rumford and McFalls Pharmacy in Mechanic Falls.

Witt said the Farmington pharmacy fills about 70,000 prescriptions a year.

“We make our own decisions in our pricing. We don’t have the big layer of executives, he said. “We know what we pay for things because we’re independent. We can set our own prices.”

Their goal is to treat people fairly so they can get a price they can afford, to get themselves better, Robert Witt said.

“A lot of prescriptions are never filled, and a lot of it is prices,” he noted.

Witt said he shops around to find the most reasonable prices and has a top generic company in Florida he talks to daily.

“We get good low prices, and we pass them along,” he said.

The brothers offer generic brands to customers whenever they’re available.

Jim Witt, the elder of the two by eight years, said he and his brother get along great.

“It’s the family thing,” he said. “I think the reason we do so well is we complement each other. One’s a little more aggressive than the other.”

He considers Robert to be the more aggressive of the two and himself to be the more cautious.

“We kind of even it out,” Jim Witt said.

He said another part of their success, in his opinion, is that the brothers have known their customers so long that they’re more like friends than customers, especially since it’s a small community.

The Witts have owned the 200-year-old business for eight years. They bought it from their father, who had owned it since 1972.

“We’re not cheaper in everything,” Jim Witt said. “We’re fair. That’s the way we were brought up … We watched my dad do it; it’s the family thing.”

Earlier this year, the Witt brothers turned down an offer from Rite Aid to buy them out.

“We’re independent, and we’re going to stay that way,” Robert Witt said.

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