Indiana and Eli Lilly & Co. have signed a nuclear energy agreement that ties the state’s emerging small modular reactor ambitions directly to one of its largest private employers, a pharmaceutical company in the middle of a multibillion-dollar manufacturing expansion that is straining the regional power grid.
The pact was announced in early 2025, according to the Indiana Office of Energy Development, which listed the agreement among its nuclear policy initiatives. It arrives as Lilly pours more than $20 billion into new and expanded production facilities across Indiana, including massive sites in Lebanon and Concord designed to manufacture injectable weight-loss and diabetes drugs at industrial scale. Those plants require around-the-clock, high-reliability electricity for manufacturing, cold chain storage, and quality-controlled research operations. The agreement signals that both the state and the company see advanced nuclear power as part of the answer to a demand curve that coal retirements and intermittent renewables alone may not satisfy.
Indiana’s nuclear groundwork
Indiana has no operating commercial nuclear reactors. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission classifies the state as a non-agreement state, meaning the federal agency retains full authority over nuclear materials within its borders. But state officials have been laying policy groundwork for several years.
In June 2021, then-Governor Eric Holcomb sent a formal letter of intent to the NRC expressing Indiana’s desire to begin the Agreement State application process, a multiyear effort that would eventually transfer certain regulatory responsibilities from Washington to Indianapolis. Publicly available NRC records confirm the letter but do not detail how far Indiana has advanced since then. States that have completed the process typically spend years drafting enabling legislation, aligning rules with federal standards, and training specialized staff. As of May 2026, no updated NRC filings or state announcements have clarified whether Indiana has submitted a formal application, enacted enabling legislation, or hired dedicated nuclear regulatory personnel in the nearly five years since Holcomb’s letter.
The Indiana Office of Energy Development has also built a dedicated nuclear policy hub tracking how the state’s utilities are incorporating nuclear generation into their Integrated Resource Plans, the long-range forecasts utilities file to show regulators how they intend to meet future electricity demand. Those filings show nuclear moving from a fringe option to a serious planning consideration in a state that still depends heavily on coal and natural gas.
The Purdue study and where SMRs might go
Separately from the Lilly deal, Indiana’s Office of Energy Development commissioned Purdue University to lead a feasibility study on small modular reactor deployment across the state. Launched in 2024, the research is designed to evaluate potential sites, technical requirements, workforce needs, and community engagement strategies. The Office of Energy Development hosts both a summary and a full technical report from the Purdue team, treating the work as a foundational reference for lawmakers, regulators, and prospective host communities.
However, publicly available materials from the study do not yet disclose specific findings, candidate sites, or a projected completion date. For a company like Lilly, proximity to existing manufacturing hubs in central Indiana would be a logical draw, but siting reactors near populated areas introduces additional safety review, land-use permitting, and local political dynamics that can slow or derail projects regardless of technical merit.
What the Lilly agreement does and does not say
The full text of the Indiana-Lilly nuclear pact has not been released publicly as of May 2026. No state filing, corporate disclosure, or regulatory submission containing the agreement’s specific terms has surfaced in available records. That leaves critical questions unanswered: whether Lilly has committed to purchasing power from a future Indiana reactor, whether the company will co-fund construction, or whether the document is a nonbinding memorandum of understanding expressing shared interest.
The distinction matters. A binding power purchase agreement would give reactor developers the revenue certainty needed to secure financing and begin construction. A memorandum of understanding, while politically significant, carries no such guarantee. Neither Lilly nor the Governor’s office has released on-the-record statements detailing the agreement’s financial or operational specifics.
“We are committed to building a reliable, affordable, and clean energy future for Hoosiers,” Indiana Governor Mike Braun said in a statement posted to the Office of Energy Development’s nuclear policy page, though the statement did not address the specific terms of the Lilly pact. No comparable public statement from Lilly executives has appeared in available corporate filings or press releases as of May 2026.
Lilly’s broader corporate strategy offers some context. The company has publicly committed to environmental sustainability targets, and its Indiana expansion is creating electricity demand on a scale that few single employers in the state can match. Whether the nuclear interest is driven primarily by decarbonization goals, grid reliability concerns, long-term cost management, or all three has not been spelled out in any public remarks from Lilly executives.
The national SMR landscape
Indiana’s push comes as small modular reactor development reaches new milestones nationally. The Tennessee Valley Authority filed a construction permit application with the NRC for a small reactor at its Clinch River site in Tennessee, marking the first such application by a U.S. utility and moving at least one SMR project from concept into formal federal licensing review.
The federal Department of Energy supports commercialization through programs like the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which provides cost-shared funding to reactor developers, and design certification assistance intended to streamline the path from prototype to deployment. Several SMR vendors, including NuScale Power, TerraPower, and X-energy, are at various stages of NRC review, though none has yet begun commercial operation in the United States.
That national timeline is important for Indiana. Even after a construction permit is granted, the path from licensing through financing, construction, and commissioning can stretch close to a decade. Indiana’s own regulatory evolution, from non-agreement state to a jurisdiction capable of overseeing nuclear operations, would likely unfold on a parallel multiyear track.
Whether Indiana can close the gap between intent and construction
Taken together, the evidence points to a state moving deliberately rather than racing toward a ribbon-cutting. Indiana has assembled policy scaffolding, engaged federal regulators, funded independent research, and attracted corporate interest from one of its most important employers. What it has not done is publicly commit to a specific reactor project, a particular technology vendor, or a construction timeline.
For supporters, that incremental approach looks like prudent risk management in a sector where cost overruns and schedule delays have historically plagued large nuclear projects. For skeptics, the absence of concrete milestones beyond studies and letters raises a fair question: will any SMR actually be built in time to influence Indiana’s energy mix or meet Lilly’s near-term power needs?
The answer depends on variables largely outside the state’s control, including federal licensing timelines, reactor vendor readiness, and whether the economics of small reactors can compete with natural gas, battery storage, and other low-carbon alternatives. The Lilly agreement adds corporate urgency and financial gravity to Indiana’s nuclear ambitions, but the state’s trajectory will ultimately be shaped by whether the technology delivers on its commercial promise. Indiana is positioning itself to be ready if it does.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
