The most likely reason for this tradition is that it helps the employees to open up to each other, by opening up to each other, members in the team will likely be comfortable with each other and would contribute to having a strong relationship among the members or the team.
I believe the reason is to keep up with current development of market opportunities
Pharmaceutical company's main operation revolved around producing drugs that popular used by customers in the market.
Starting with a story about a research breakthrough will help the whole team generate new ideas regarding the possibilities of new drugs that can be created because of the research breakthrough.
