Shionogi Inc. President and CEO John Keller (left) and Pharmbio Korea CEO Nam Bong-gil shake hands after signing the strategic partnership agreement on April 10.

Pharmbio Korea said Wednesday that it has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Shionogi, a Japan-based multinational pharmaceutical company, to market Osphena, a dyspareunia treatment, exclusively.

Dyspareunia refers to a pain some women experience during sexual intercourse. The symptoms mainly affect postmenopausal women.

The drug is a non-hormonal selective estrogen receptor modulator approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2015.

“The number of postmenopausal women is increasing in line with the current aging society, which has raised the awareness of women’s health and quality of life,” the company said in a statement. “However, patients are not receiving proper treatment because of limited treatment and side effects.”

Especially, menopausal women lack in sex-specific therapies in Korea. Therefore the company expects that the launch of Osphena will make a significant contribution to providing menopausal women with a healthy sex life, it added.

“Based on the technology of Shionogi, Osphena has proved its efficacy, safety and marketability in the U.S. and major European countries,” Pharmbio Korea CEO Nam Bong-gil said. “The company believes that the drug will satisfy the needs that existing therapies failed to meet and will become the best treatment for both medical staffs and patients.”

According to Statistic Korea, there are approximately 10 million postmenopausal women in Korea with 30 to 40 percent of them suffering from dyspareunia.

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