Antivirals, such as Merck’s molnupiravir and Pfizer’s nirmatrelvir, are given to people infected with COVID-19 when prescribed by a doctor or as part of a clinical trial. Yet entire websites exist that sell it without prescription anyway.

COVID-19 caused numerous parts of culture to flip. In the United States, the left abandoned their historical anti-vaccine camp while the right took up the old 'needs more testing' position of their opposition. The poor began to feel like the rich were given early access to treatments and even that some treatments were being casually dismissed by epidemiologists without being tested enough. That has led to a black market. In England, a website for molnupiravir offers patients generic versions online without medical supervision.

Widespread, unregulated use of antivirals may also encourage viral resistance, but there is no evidence any of these sites are actually selling real medicine. Still, when access is limited, and media hypes treatments as they did with molnupiravir based on interim data, black markets become common. And people will pretend to be medical companies.

What is the solution? 'Make it free' is always easy advice for someone else's company, but nations with weak technical capacity don't invent these products because science costs money and expecting countries with money to immediately make a billion-dollar product a low-cost generic is unrealistic. Expensive treatments will be purchased first by wealthier people in wealthier nations and that leaves a vacuum for grifters to fill. 

Rationalizing criminal behavior by saying it is due to inequality is giving bad actors an ethical free pass, and these products still need medical supervision. That is the part that people exploiting black markets want to avoid.