Company spokesperson Cornell Stamoran said that no customer contracts have been cancelled, but the decision relates to "shifts in customer demand."
More than one customer has initiated contract cut backs, which involve both prescription and over the counter (OTC) medicines, "for different reasons specific to the individual products involved," said Stamoran.
He added that such a situation was "not abnormal in a contract manufacturing environment… in the nature of any outsourcing business, when customers experience volume demand changes, they affect us too."
Stamoran said that generally, contract manufacturers can smooth over any changes in production demand from their clients, based on long-term predictions that they are given by their clients up front, however, with unexpected declines in demand such as is the current situation, "we were unable to anticipate it and prepare for it" and so the job losses are an unfortunate necessity.
In this case, the affected workers, which equate to one sixth of the site's workforce, are mainly involved in direct manufacturing, i.e. machine operators, with a few fixed manufacturing positions, i.e. those offering support such as quality control to the manufacturing process also being terminated.
"At this point, we don't believe the demand changes for the customer products are long term, although I cannot make any forward looking statements about the situation at this point," said Stamoran.
"At present we are not aware of any reasons why there should be further reductions at the site," he added. "We are very diversified across our company and so major downturns in production are usually offset by other product demands."
Stamoran also stressed that the Florida site, which is part of the firm's oral soft gel business remains strategically important to the firm and there are no plans to sell it. "The facility is still running seven days a week, 24 hours a day," he said.
Catalent was formed when Cardinal Health sold its Pharmaceutical and Technologies and Services unit to The Blackstone Group for $3.3bn in April 2007.
Since then, the company has sold two other sites for "strategic reasons", in Osny, France, and in Albuquerque, New Mexico.