Traditional approaches to covalent drug design postulate that noncovalent binding affinity (Ki) should be in the nanomolar range for the lead compound to be attractive. A study by Hansen et al. suggests that covalent K-Ras inhibitors can have weak noncovalent binding affinity yet have fast chemical reactivity (kinact), because K-Ras enhances the covalent reactivity of bound inhibitor, similarly to how enzymes activate their substrates.