The .max file format is closed and proprietary. It is not possible to read it outside of 3dsmax.
At some point we would like to create a 3dsmax plugin version Transmutr, so that it can directly read the data from within 3dsmax. But this is probably far in the future.
For now the best is to convert the V-Ray materials to Standard materials, then export as FBX.
I have not tested yet, but it looks like there are many material converters for that : http://www.scriptspot.com/search/apachesolr_search/material%20converter?filters=type%3Ascript