Drayton Virkler
President and Chief Commercial Officer
Drayton Virkler is President and Chief Commercial Officer at Fortrea, focused on improving the probability of success of biopharmaceutical companies across the globe as they bring life-saving and life-enhancing products to the market. Drayton joined the organization in May 2023 during Fortrea’s spinoff from its parent company, Labcorp.
Drayton has a broad array of global and industrial experience including leadership of global go-to-market teams as well as leadership of global and regional business development teams in the U.S., Canada and Asia Pacific. He spent the last 20 years working in the life sciences sector across service providers and pharmaceutical sponsors. Before joining Fortrea, Drayton was the President of the Regulatory and Access division at Certara, a global leader in biosimulation, technology and tech-driven services to accelerate medicine development for biopharmaceutical companies. Previously, he served as Certara’s Chief Commercial Officer. Drayton held a variety of commercial leadership roles at Quintiles, now part of IQVIA, a human data science company. During his 10-year tenure, he led business development in the US and Canada and led its Asia Pacific business development team. Drayton served as head of Investor Relations for Talecris Biotherapeutics, building and managing the function after the company’s $1 billion IPO in 2009 and through its acquisition by Grifols in 2011. Prior to joining Talecris in 2008, Drayton was an executive with GSK from 2003 to 2008 where he held a variety of positions in marketing and sales. Earlier in his career, Drayton worked as a country manager and formulation chemist for his family's textile chemical company. He has lived and worked in Argentina, Mexico, Singapore and the U.S., and is fluent in English and Spanish.
Drayton has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Washington and Lee University and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He serves on the International Board of Directors for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as well as the Board of Visitors for the Fuqua School of Business.