Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line Jon Groberg, Merrill Lynch.
Jon Groberg - Merrill Lynch
Hey guys. Congratulations, on a good quarter.
Martin D. Madaus, Ph.D - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Charles F. Wagner, Jr. - Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Jon Groberg - Merrill Lynch
First question just from a clarification standpoint, since you did only include 11 weeks in Serologicals last year. Do you know roughly what that was? Was it $2 million to $3 million, or what they contributed this --?
Martin D. Madaus, Ph.D - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
The first two weeks of the third quarter of this year was roughly $7.5 million. So that's the reconciling number.
Jon Groberg - Merrill Lynch
Okay. Thanks. And then can you talk a little bit more about margins. I know you had mentioned before that you are going to invest more in trying to drive the growth, which you know; if you excluded that $7.5 million you still kind of have double-digit growth there in the bioscience business. But you also delivered much better margins than kind of what we are expecting. What were the primary levers of that? Was it just the gross margin flow through? But it looks like you also were able to get more leverage as well?
Martin D. Madaus, Ph.D - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well some of this is gross margin as you correctly said other. But the major driver certainly SG&A leverage, and you see the synergies coming in from our acquisitions and the fact that we are selling the same end market and the fact that we have successfully completed the integration work is showing now in Q3.
Charles F. Wagner, Jr. - Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hey, Jon, I would just add. There is a slight benefit from a strong bioscience quarter versus bioprocess, and then within bioscience there is a benefit from a very strong performance in the drug discovery business.
Jon Groberg - Merrill Lynch
Okay. And just sticking with bioscience for a second again, I know you, there is some of the Sero business have some offices there in Southern California. Were any of them impacted by the fires?
Martin D. Madaus, Ph.D - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, they impacted, yes, but not operationally, not materially. There were some people who couldn't get to work, but it was... we were operational during the whole time, so yes, it was closed, but we were okay.
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